title: CH3-π interaction of explosives with cavity of a TPE macrocycle: the key cause for highly selective detection of TNT.
abstract: The identification of explosives is critical for analyzing the background of terrorism activities and the origin of pollution aroused by the explosives, but it is a challenge to discriminate the explosives with a very similar structure. Herein we report a series of TPE-based macrocycles with an AIE effect for the 0.2-4 ppb level detection of TNT among a number of nitro-aromatic compounds through fluorescence quenching in natural water sources, whereas the contact mode approach using portable paper sensors exhibited a high sensitivity for the detection of TNT at 1.0 × 10(-13) M level. The reliability of the quantitative analysis has been confirmed by HPLC. Our findings demonstrate that the TPE-based macrocycles have great potential as excellent sensors for TNT. Moreover, it was found for the first time that the macrocycles could selectively recognize nitroaromatics explosives bearing methyl group through a CH3-π interactions, and even exhibit a sole selectivity for TNT among the very difficultly differentiating nitroaromatics including trinitrophenol and trinitrobenzene.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Large-Format Battery Materials and System, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan 430074, China.
authors.forename: Hai-Tao
authors.initials: HT
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Jin-Hua
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yan-Song
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Zheng
keywords: CH3−π interaction; aggregation-induced emission; explosive sensor; selective probe for TNT; tetraphenylethylene macrocycles