Fluorescent thiazol-substituted pyrazoline nanoparticles for sensitive and highly selective sensing of explosive 2,4,6-trinitrophenol in aqueous medium

2,4,6-Trinitrophenol (TNP), also known as picric acid is an explosive material that pose hazard to human safety and health, therefore its selective and efficient detection is extremely important. By knowing the good optical properties of pyrazoline derivatives, thiazol-substituted pyrazoline (1)-based organic fluorescent nanoparticles (N1) were employed for the highly selective sensing of TNP over a number of other nitroaromatics in aqueous medium. The quenching efficiency of N1 is proportional to the concentration of TNP over 0 μM-6 μM concentration range and it efficiently detects TNP with a detection limit of 0.002 ppm. The fast, sensitive and highly selective detection of trinitrophenol (TNP) on the basis of fluorescence quenching in contrast to other nitro-explosives and structurally-related compounds in aqueous medium by the fluorescent probe N1 is attributed to the acid-base interaction induced electron transfer process.