ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

Two 1,8-naphthalimide-based proton-receptor fluorescent probes for pH determination

Hui-Lu Wu, Cheng-Yong Chen, Han Zhang, Hong-Ping Peng, Fei Wang, Zai-Hui Yang, and Jia-Wen Zhang

^aSchool of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730070, China

E-mail: wuhuilu@163.com

Abstract: Two newly synthesised 1,8-naphthalimide-based proton-receptor fluorescent probes N-allyl-4-(4′-N,N-diethylpropionamide-acetamido-piperazinyl)-1,8-naphthalimide I and N-(N,N-dibenzylpro-pionamide-acetamido)-4-allyl-1-piperazinyl-1,8-naphthalimide II were synthesised to monitor the change in pH in such a way that the presence of protons can increase the fluorescence intensity of these compounds. Unlike most of the other pH-sensitive probes reported, the probes possess the obvious advantage of being able to detect stronger acids at pH ≈ 2 and a combination of the two probes could detect a wider pH scale from 1.98 to 6.59; this should be very useful for monitoring the pH of the environment.

Keywords: 1,8-naphthalimide – fluorescence – proton-receptor probes – pH-detecting

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.1515/chempap-2016-0006

Chemical Papers 70 (6) 685–694 (2016)