A novel thiosemicarbazone Schiff base derivative with aggregation-induced emission enhancement characteristics and its application in Hg2+ detection

A new acenaphtho[1,2-b]quinoxaline-based thiosemicarbazone Schiff base M1 has been designed and synthesized, which was characterized by FT-IR, H-1 NMR, C-13 NMR and HR-MS (TOF-MS). The properties of M1 were investigated by UV-vis absorption and fluorescence emission spectroscopy, founding that M1 possessed aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AIEE) properties and exhibited on-off fluorescent responses to Hg2+. The results of UV-vis and fluorescence titration experiments revealed that M1 was selective and sensitive to Hg2+ in DMSO/H2O (v/v = 9/1) buffered by 50 mM Tris-HCl at pH = 7.0. And the detection limit was calculated to be 9.07 x 10(-7) M. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.