Tetraphenylethene probe based fluorescent silica nanoparticles for the selective detection of nitroaromatic explosives

A simple and sensitive fluorometric method is developed utilizing aggregation-induced emission probe based silica nanoparticles for the detection of nitroaromatic explosives. A positively charged tetraphenylethene based probe (TPE-C2-2+) is doped into silica nanoparticles exploiting electrostatic interactions to produce TPE-SiO2 nanoparticles with a uniform particle size. The TPE-SiO2 nanoparticles exhibit strong fluorescence emission due to the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) effect of the doped TPE probe. The fluorescence emission of TPE-SiO2 offers quantitative and sensitive response to picric acid (PA), 2,4-dinitrotoluene (DNT) and 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) which are used as model examples of nitroaromatic compounds. The fluorescence spectroscopy results show that the fluorescence emission of TPE-SiO2 was greatly quenched in the presence of the electron-poor nitroaromatic compounds due to the inner filter effect (IFE) and possibly the contact quenching mechanism. TPE-SiO2 nanoparticles show better sensitivity towards PA and could detect PA down to 0.01 μM with a linear detection range of 0.1-50 μM. The increased chemical stability, efficient high sensitivity and simple synthesis of the TPE-SiO2 nanoparticles demonstrate that they can be used as an excellent fluorescent probe for a wide range of electron-poor compounds, i.e. nitroaromatic compounds. Interference studies show that common interfering species with nitroexplosives such as acids, bases, volatile organic compounds, and salt solutions have a negligible effect during the sensing process.