A novel fluorescence sensing strategy for identification and quantitation of C60 and C70 by multi-emission lanthanide-disalicylaldehyde hybrid

Till now, there is still a lack of the convenient and efficient approach to implement identification and quantitation of fullerenes in various domains. This work provides the first example for detecting fullerenes by an adequate fluorescent probe, in parallel with the new methodology for detecting fullerenes by the fluorescent chemosensing approach. Using a multi-emission lanthanide-disalicylaldehyde coordination hybrid H₂Q_j2/Tb_0.91Eu_0.09, the rapid, selective and discriminative detection of analogous C₆₀ and C₇₀ can be easily achieved after the spectral and statistical analyses of fluorescent sensing signals on four emission bands (416, 543, 447 and 615 nm), excited by two irradiation lights (370 and 394 nm). Titration experiments further verify the very high linearity for both C₆₀ and C₇₀ and allow their detection at concentrations as low as 1.72 μM (C₆₀) and 0.09 μM (C₇₀). Moreover, this fluorescent probe also shows its reliable abilities to identify proportional C₆₀/C₇₀ mixtures and monitor C₆₀ and C₇₀ contents in actual soil sample. It is believed that our proposed lanthanide-base fluorescent matrix not only verify the feasibility and potential of fluorescent chemosensing methodology for the fullerene detection but also provide a valuable tool for potential applications.