Highly sensitive and rapid responsive fluorescence probe for determination of formaldehyde in seafood and in vivo imaging application

Abstract Mutagenic formaldehyde (FA) is usually abused to preserve seafood, thus it is very necessary to detect harmful formaldehyde in seafood with a simple and effective method. In this work, we facilely prepared a new fluorescent probe RBNA, which showed a remarkable fluorescence lighting-up response towards FA with high sensitivity and selectivity, fast response (within 5 min) and a low detection limit (0.21 μM). The fluorescence intensity is linearly related to the concentration of FA ranging from 0 to 120 μM (R2 = 0.9952), which enables it to quantitatively determine the concentration of FA. This probe was successfully used to detect FA in seafood samples with good recoveries (80–119%). Furthermore, the probe has been utilized to image FA in living cells and zebrafish with good performance. Therefore, this probe has a good capability for rapid and sensitive determination of FA in seafood.