Molecular phosphonic acid-tethered tetraphenylethene AIEgen based highly selective fluorescent turn-on sensor for neomycin

We demonstrated highly selective and sensitive tetraphenylethene -tetraphosphonic acids for the facile detection of aminoglycoside antibiotic neomycin for the first time. Neomycin was found to effectively induce aggregate formation of (4-(1,2,2-tris(4-phosphonophenyl)vinyl)phenyl)phosphonic acid octasodium salt (TPPE) in aqueous solution. The aggregation-induced emission (AIE) response of TPPE was realized upon addition of neomycin in Milli-Q water at pH 7. The detection mechanism relies on electrostatic and hydrogen bonding interactions. The TPPE-based sensor system exhibited a detection limit 2.088 × 10−10 M of neomycin. Further, we demonstrate use of TPPE system for visual detection of neomycin as thin layer chromatography (TLC) sensor to develop kits for real world applications.