A novel imidazole derivative-based turn-on probe for rapid and sensitive detection of phosphate and carbonate in environmental samples.

Authors

Zong-Yan Li, Slieman Milaneh, Fu-Yang Dong, Wen-Long Wang

Published in

Spectrochimica acta. Part A, Molecular and biomolecular spectroscopy. Volume 363. Issue Pt 1. Pages 128239. Jun 15, 2026. Epub Jun 15, 2026.

Abstract

In this study, a novel fluorescent probe, Y, based on a thieno[2,3-b]pyrrole-dibenzimidazole scaffold, was synthesized and evaluated. Probe Y exhibited high sensitivity toward phosphate (PO₄^3-) and carbonate (CO₃^2-) in a DMSO: H₂O (9:1, v/v) medium, showing a fluorescence "turn-on" response with the emergence of an emission peak at 467 nm. Probe Y displayed strong binding affinities for both PO₄^3- and CO₃^2-, with detection limits of 0.67 μM and 0.26 μM, respectively. The recognition mechanisms were investigated using ¹H NMR and Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations. Experiments conducted using authentic water and soil matrices confirmed probe Y's high sensitivity in complex samples. Simultaneously, probe Y was effectively employed in test strips, thereby confirming its high sensitivity. This illustrates its capacity as one of the few fluorescent probes that can concurrently detect PO₄^3-and CO₃^2-.

PMID:
42320164
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 20 Jun 2026.

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