Fluorogenic and chromogenic detection of Cu2+ and Fe3+ species in aqueous media by rhodamine–triazole conjugate

The simple yet efficient method for the detection of Cu2+ and Fe3+ by respective coordination of triazole–triazole and triazole–carbonate in aqueous media was achieved using the BisTriazole–Rhodamine B (BTRB) chemosensor. The addition of Cu2+ enhances the fluorescence intensity to 20 fold (Φf=0.31) while Fe3+ enhances 14 fold (Φf=0.12) in comparison with BTRB. Competitive experiments with BTRB–Cu2+ revealed that addition of Fe3+ displaces Cu2+ causes obvious fluorescence enhancement (2.8 fold). Application of BTRB probe was exploited by conducting a copper catalyzed model reaction from which total copper content in the catalytic product as an impurity was determined as 356 ppm.