A new multifunctional sensor for sequential recognizing of Zn2+ and PPi in acetonitrile solution and detection of In3+ in DMF solution

A simple multifunctional sensor, X, was designed and synthesized based on 8-hydroxy-2,3,6,7-tetrahydro-1H,5H-pyrido[3,2,1-ij]quinoline-9-carbaldehyde and imidazo(2,1-b)thiazole, which could sequentially identify Zn2+ and PPi in acetonitrile buffer solution through the presence or absence of fluorescent signals and could detect In3+ in DMF buffer solution with obvious fluorescence enhancement. The detection limit for Zn2+, PPi and In3+ were calculated to be 4.58 x 10(-8) M, 1.07 x 10(-8) M and 2.9 x 10(-8) M, respectively. Moreover, X could quantitatively detect Zn2+, PPi and In3+ in real water samples with the satisfactory recovery rate (90.1 %-97.6 %) and RSD (0.86 %-3.09 %). In addition, the complexation ratio between X and metal ions (Zn 2* and In3+ ) was 1:1, which was proved by mass spectrometry titration. The binding mode and sensing mechanism of X to metal ions (Zn2+ and In3+) were verified by Gaussian calculation based on B3LYP/6.31 G(d) and B3LYP/LanL2DZ basis set.