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Determination of water in organic solvents and raw food products by fluorescence quenching of a crystalline vinyl-functionalized COF

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Abstract

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) with good chemical stability, flexible chemical functionalization, tunable pore sizes, and high specific surface areas have been increasingly employed in the field of fluorescence sensing. In this work, a crystalline vinyl-functionalized COF TzDa-V was facilely prepared through a room-temperature synthetic method via condensation reaction between 4,4′,4″-(1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triyl)trianiline (Tz) and 2,5-diallyloxyterephthalaldehyde (Da-V). The intermolecular charge transfer (ICT) effect endowed the TzDa-V with fluorescence characteristic, and it was sensitive to trace water and can be quenched due to the disruption of ICT process by water. On this base, the prepared COF TzDa-V with excellent chemical/thermal stability was applied to sensing of trace water in common organic solvents such as DMF, acetone, THF, and ethyl acetate with rapid response (less than 10 s), satisfactory sensing range (0.5–18% water in DMF, 0.5–15% water in acetone, 0.5–16% water in THF, 0.5–5% in ethyl acetate, v/v), and high sensitivity. The limits of detection for water in DMF, acetone, THF, and ethyl acetate were 0.0497%, 0.0590%, 0.0502%, and 0.0766% (v/v), respectively. The proposed probe was successfully used for the detection of trace water in food products such as salt and sugar. The COF TzDa-V would be a good candidate for application in water sensing.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 82073808 and 81872828).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wuhan University, 430071, Wuhan, China

    Zhentao Li, Qiaoyan Li, Zhuang Hu, Changjun Hu, Xinyue Cui, Yuanyuan Fu & Zilin Chen

  2. Key Laboratory of Combinatorial Biosynthesis and Drug Discovery, Ministry of Education, Hubei Province Engineering and Technology Research Center for Fluorinated Pharmaceuticals, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Zhentao Li, Qiaoyan Li, Zhuang Hu, Changjun Hu, Xinyue Cui, Yuanyuan Fu & Zilin Chen

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  1. Zhentao Li
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Li, Z., Li, Q., Hu, Z. et al. Determination of water in organic solvents and raw food products by fluorescence quenching of a crystalline vinyl-functionalized COF. Microchim Acta 189, 361 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-022-05432-0

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