Anion chelation-induced porphyrin protonation and its application for chloride anion sensing

The protonation of a simple meso-tetraphenylporphyrin in an organic-aqueous system was found to be induced by the counteranions. During the process of protonation, the counteranion of the proton sources binds with the porphyrin core and thus promotes the complexation of the porphyrin and protons. The interaction of porphyrin and anion was characterized by fluorescence, UV-visible, cyclic voltammetry, H-1 NMR, and IR. Moreover, it could be exploited in selective fluorescent sensing of Cl-. The sensing mechanism was based on extraction of protons from the aqueous phase into the organic phase by free base porphyrin and simultaneous coextraction of Cl-, which promoted porphyrin protonation, and hence resulted in significant changes of the porphyrin fluorescence spectra. Selectivity trends turned out to be dependent upon the lipophilicity of anion and the binding affinity and structure complementarity between the protonated porphyrin and anions. The fluorescence enhancement of the porphyrin band at 684 nm showed modest selectivity for Cl- and NO3-.