Selective fluorescent sensor for Al3+ using a novel quinoline derivative in aqueous solution

• 2-methyl quinoline-4-carboxylic hydrazide was rarely synthesized.
• We have designed a fluorescent chemosensor for recognition of Al3+ base on PET.
• The sensor shows a large fluorescence enhancement in the present of Al3+.
• The detection limits for Al3+ reach at 10−6 M level in aqueous solution.

In this paper, a novel fluorescent Al3+-sensor (8-Hydroxyquinoline-7-aldehyde-(2′-methylquinoline-4′-formyl hydrazone, L1) based on quinoline derivative has been designed and synthesized. Compared with L1 without Al3+, the sensor L1 shows significant fluorescence enhancement in the presence of Al3+ in ethanol–water (v/v, 9:1). We hypothesize that the reason might be attributed to the formation of 1:2 ligand–metal complexes inhibiting photoinduced electron transfer (PET) progress.

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