Fluorescent Ensemble Sensors and Arrays Based on Surfactant Aggregates Encapsulating Pyrene-Derived Fluorophores for Differentiation Applications

Abstract

Surfactant assemblies have drawn great attention in fabricating fluorescent sensors as they can provide advantages such as easy preparation, low cost, aqueous detection, high fluorescence stability, high sensitivity to external stimuli, etc. We have devoted the past few years to fluorescent cross-reactive sensors and arrays that are advantageous in differentiating similar analytes and analyzing mixed samples. In this Spotlight on Applications, we introduce our recent advances in developing surfactant assembly-based fluorescent sensors and arrays for discrimination applications. Besides using surfactant assemblies encapsulating fluorophores to fabricate multiple-element-based sensor arrays, we particularly proposed to take advantage of modulation effect of dynamic surfactant assemblies on the photophysical properties of encapsulated fluorophores to construct single-system-based discriminative sensors, which have been successfully applied in differentiation of multiple metal ions and various proteins. The applications of surfactant assembly-based sensors for the detection and discrimination of thiols, amino acids, and explosives are also introduced. Finally, the prospects of further efforts for improving surfactant ensemble sensors and their challenges are discussed.

Nanostructured Luminescent Micelles: Efficient “Functional Materials” for Sensing Nitroaromatic and Nitramine Explosives

“…A wide variety of luminescent micellar systems have been reported so far in the current literature demonstrating metal ion sensing [8][9][10][11][12][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. However, as our main focus is on explosive sensing in a micellar medium, we will cover the metal ion sensing in this section in brief.…”

“…Taking advantage of the aggregated pyrene-based excimer emission, Ding and coworkers used a series of synthetic luminescent molecular probes for constructing the surfactant ensembled metal ion sensors, which are nicely summarized in a recent article [12]. Among the series, the neutral bispyrene derivative shown in Figure 3 inset provides substantial sensing behavior to various di-and tri-valent metal ions.…”

“…Inset: Top, the Chemdraw representation of bispyrene derivative; bottom, the photograph of bispyrene/SDS sensor in the presence of Fe 3+ , Cu 2+ , Co 2+ , and Zn 2+ respectively, under exposure of UV light. This figure is reproduced with permission from reference [12], Copyright © 2022, American Chemical Society.…”

“…These luminophoric materials are used to demonstrate the rudimentary models for various CT/ET processes in an aqueous solution in the presence of various chemical entities [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Based on the fundamental idea of CT/ET transition, a considerable number of elegant luminous micellar systems are developed for sensing metal ions [8][9][10][11][12] and anions [13][14][15], biomolecules [16][17][18][19][20], detection of explosive [21][22][23][24][25], etc. to name a few.…”

A Water Soluble 2-Phenyl-5-(pyridin-3-yl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole Based Probe: Antimicrobial Activity and Colorimetric/Fluorescence pH Response

“…Optical probes offer in situ observation, real-time and fast-response monitoring, sensitivity, selectivity [ 1 , 2 , 3 ], and even by the non-invasive approach required for living tissues [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. Colorimetric/fluorescent tools revolutionized the ability to probe biological dynamics at the cellular level on several platforms: small-molecule dyes, metal complexes, and fluorescent proteins [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. The oldest family of photoluminescence (PL) sensors encompass small organic molecules [ 14 , 19 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ], still sought-after but in a different perspective.…”