A novel turn-on fluorescent probe for Hg2+ detection based on rhodamine B spirolactam derivative

In this work, a new turn-on fluorescent probe 1 for Hg2+ ions detection based on rhodamine B spirolactam was reported. Among tested metal ions, probe 1 shows high selectivity towards Hg2+ in the the mixture solution of methanol and 0.02 M HEPES buffer (V/V = 9:1, pH = 7.2). No absorption and emission band of probe 1 was observed in the range from 450 to 700 nm. While only addition of Hg2+ to probe 1 could lead to appearance of a new absorption band centered at 553 nm and a fluorescence emission band around 577 nm upon excitation at 520 nm. Moreover, it exhibits excellent linear relationship (R2 = 0.9993) between fluorescence intensity at 577 nm and the concentration of Hg2+ from 1.6 to 32 μM. The sensing mechanism was proven to be spirolactam ring open induced by Hg2+ through 1H NMR, MS, absorption and fluorescence spectra. In addition, probe 1 could detect Hg2+ in real water samples and on filter paper, which demonstrates its application in environment science.