A coumarin-based portable fluorescent probe for rapid turn-on detection of amine vapors

Amines are widely used in many fields including agriculture, dyes, medicine and food processing. However, volatile amine vapors could initiate acute and serious damage to human bodies. Thus, highly efficient detection of volatile amine vapors has great importance for academic research as well as practical application. In this work, a turn-on type fluorescent sensor BZCO has been developed, which could be used to detect volatile amine vapors. The portable BZCO sensor can be easily prepared through immersing filter paper into its CH2Cl2 solution and then evaporating it to dryness. This paper-based amine vapor sensor exhibits high sensitivity with a relatively low detection limit at 3.82 ppm. It also has good selectivity for discriminating amine vapors from volatile organic solvents. The detection mechanism has been confirmed by UV–vis spectral analysis. The practical applications of this paper-based BZCO sensor, such as detection of food spoilage and fluorescent security ink, have been investigated. This work has developed a new fluorescent sensor BZCO, which has broad applications in various fields, including amine gas detection, security and anti-counterfeiting materials.