A novel benzidine based Schiff base “turn-on” fluorescent chemosensor for selective recognition of Zn2+.

A novel chemo-sensor based on diaminobenzidine (H 2 L) was synthesized and characterized. The chemo-sensor shows selective “turn-on” fluorescence response to Zn 2+ ion over a variety of other competing metal ions such as Al 3+ , Mn 2+ , Fe 3+ , Co 2+ , Ni 2+ , Cu 2+ , and Cd 2+ . The strong fluorescent emission can be observed even at ppm level concentration of the probe in the presence of Zn 2+ with over 54 fold intensity enhancement at 509 nm. Similar fluorescence behaviour is also observed in a variety of solvents and solvent mixtures in the presence of zinc(II). The fluorescent emission is also detected when the H 2 L sample solution containing Zn 2+ is exposed to UV radiation. The sensitive nature of fluorescent response of the probe to Zn 2+ is gauged from the very low detection limit of 8.6 × 10 −9 M. The chemo-sensor H 2 L binds to zinc(II) in 1:1 stoichiometry as determined by Job's plot and the binding constant is calculated as 7.8 × 10 4 M −1 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]