A selective turn-on fluorescent probe for Al3+ based-on a diacylhydrazone deritive in aqueous medium and its cell imaging

Al 3+ has no spectroscopic characteristics and its coordination ability is very poor. Therefore, the detection of Al 3+ is a challenging task. To address this issue, here we report a diacylhydrazone-based fluorescent chemosensor ( L ) for Al 3+ structurally characterized by HRMS and NMR spectroscopy. The selective test revealed that L had a high selectivity towards Al 3+ with a turn-on response in DMF/H 2 O (v/v, 8: 2) buffer solution. The combination ratio between L and Al 3+ was determined to be 1: 2 as supported by Job’s plot analysis and NMR titration experiment. The recognition of Al 3+ was without interference of other competing species. The detection limit was calculated to be as low as 2.41 μM. Moreover, the probe was proved to be of low cytotoxicity in physiological condition and it was applied to image Al 3+ in living cells successfully.