A new pyrenyl-appended triazole for fluorescent recognition of Hg2+ ion in aqueous solution

A new pyrenyl-appended triazole for fluorescent sensing of Hg2+, I, has been synthesized and characterized. Upon addition of Hg2+ to 1 in the acetonitrile aqueous solution, more than 80% of the initial fluorescence intensity of 1 was quenched, which allowed a selective and sensitive fluorescent detection of Hg(II) without any interference from other metal ions. H-1 NMR analysis revealed that the two sulfonamide and triazole groups of 1 played a critical role in the interactions with Hg2+ ion, which can be further proved by the density functional theory based theoretical calculation. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.