A porous tetraphenylethylene-based polymer for fast-response fluorescence sensing of Fe(III) ion and nitrobenzene

A fluorescent porous tetraphenylethylene-based organic polymer (PTOP) was constructed by the reaction of 5,5',5'',5‴-(ethene-1,1,2,2-tetrayltetrakis(benzene-4,1-diyl))tetrakis(pyrimidin-2-amine) and cyanuric chloride in the presence of potassium carbonate. CO2 sorption experiment at 195 K reveals the permanent porosity of PTOP with a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area of 227 m2 g−1. In particular, the existence of rich secondary amines and pyrimidine nitrogen atoms surrounding the 1,3,5-triazine moieties in PTOP provides abundant chelating sites for metal ions, endowing a fast-response and sensitive fluorescence sensing Fe(III) with a low limit of detection of 4.5 μM. In addition, this polymer also shows an excellent sensing performance towards nitrobenzene with good selectivity and a low detection limit of 1.6 nM.