A Tetraphenylethylene-based Fluorescent Chemosensor for Cu²⁺ in Aqueous Solution and Its Potential Application to Detect Histidine

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A tetraphenylethylene-based compound with the property of aggregation-induced emission was designed and synthesized. It exhibited good sensitivity and selectivity to Cu²⁺ over other metal ions (Zn²⁺, Cd²⁺, Ba²⁺, Ni²⁺, Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺, Co²⁺, Fe³⁺, Pb²⁺, Mn²⁺, Fe²⁺, Ag⁺, K⁺, and Hg²⁺) in an aqueous solution by the “turn-off” UV-vis absorbance and fluorescence signals. More interesting, with the subsequent addition of histidine rather than other amino acids such as proline, alanine, aspartic acid, lysine, arginine, leucine, glutamine or cysteine, the complex between the compound and Cu²⁺ was disrupted, and the UV-vis absorbance and fluorescence signals were recovered, indicating that the complex from the compound and Cu²⁺ could be used as a “turn-on” fluorescent probe for histidine.