A facile AIE fluorescent probe with large Stokes shift for the detection of Cd2+ in real water samples and living cells

A facile AIE fluorescent probe which exhibits a large stokes shift of 202 nm has been successfully developed. The probe can recognize Cd2+ with high selectivity by inhibiting ESIPT process, leading to observably blue-shift and significantly enhanced fluorescence with the colour changed from green to cyan. Excitedly, the recognition of Cd2+ is completely free from the interference of Zn2+ and Cd2+ could be quantitatively detected in aqueous solution with the detection limit of 1.5 × 10−7 M. Moreover, the probe has been successfully applied to detect Cd2+ in real water samples and image Cd2+ in living cells.