Novel biocompatible and sensitive visual sensor based on aggregation-induced emission for on-site detection of radioactive uranium in water and live cell imaging

In consideration of the severe hazards of radioactive uranium pollution, the rapid assessment of uranium in field and in vivo are urgently needed. In this work a novel biocompatible and sensitive visual fluorescent sensor based on aggregation-induced emission (AIE) was designed for onsite detection of UO22+ in complex environmental samples, including wastewater from Uranium Plant, river water and living cell. The AIE-active sensor (named as TPA-SP) was prepared with a "bottom-up" strategy by introducing a trianiline group (TPA) with a single-bond rotatable helix structure into the salicylaldehyde Schiff-base molecule. The photophysical properties, cytotoxicity test, recognition mechanism and the analytical performance for the detection of UO22+ in actual water samples and cell imaging were systematically investigated. TPA-SP exhibited high sensitivity and selectivity toward UO22+ as well as outstanding anti-interference ability against large equivalent of different ions in a wide effective pH range. A good linear relationship in the UO22+ concentration range of 0.05-1 μM was obtained with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 39.4 nM (9.38 ppb) for uranium detection. The prepared visual sensor showed great potential for fast risk assessment of uranium pollution in environmental systems. In addition, our results also indicated that the TPA-SP exhibited very low cytotoxicity in cells and demonstrated great potential for uranium detection in vivo.