Author(s):
Lourenço, Igor ; Duarte, Frederico ; Dobrikov, Georgi M. ; Kurutos, Atanas ; Slavchev, Ivaylo ; Capelo-Martínez, José Luis ; Santos, Hugo M. ; Lodeiro, Carlos
Date: 2025
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/188655
Origin: Repositório Institucional da UNL
Project/scholarship:
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/Concurso de avaliação no âmbito do Programa Plurianual de Financiamento de Unidades de I&D (2017%2F2018) - Financiamento Base/UIDB%2F50006%2F2020/PT;
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/Concurso de avaliação no âmbito do Programa Plurianual de Financiamento de Unidades de I&D (2017%2F2018) - Financiamento Programático/UIDP%2F50006%2F2020/PT;
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT//2021.05161.BD/PT;
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/Concurso para Atribuição do Estatuto e Financiamento de Laboratórios Associados (LA)/LA%2FP%2F0008%2F2020/PT;
Subject(s): Chemistry(all); Materials Chemistry
Description
PM003/2016). F. D. thanks the FCT/MCTES (Portugal) for his doctoral grant 2021.05161.BD. H. M. S. acknowledges the Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry LAQV (LA/P/0008/2020) funded by the FCT/MCTES for his research contract. The financial support by the Bulgarian National Science Fund (BNSF) under grant – “Novel styryl and polymethine fluorophores as potential theranostic agents” contract No KΠ-06-M59/1 from 15.11.2021 is gratefully acknowledged by A. K. This work is also developed and acknowledged by A. K. as part of contract No: BG-RRP-2.004-0002-C01, Laboratory of Organic Functional Materials (Project BiOrgaMCT), Procedure BG-RRP-2.004 “Establishing of a network of research higher education institutions in Bulgaria”, funded by the BULGARIAN NATIONAL RECOVERY AND RESILIENCE PLAN. G. D. acknowledges that this work was supported by the European Regional Development Fund under the “Research Innovation and Digitization for Smart Transformation” program 2021-2027 under the Project BG16RFPR002-1.014-0006 “National Centre of Excellence Mechatronics and Clean Technologies”. Research equipment of this project was used for experimental work. Publisher Copyright: © 2025 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
In this work, two new dansyl-derived chemosensors have been designed with the aim of developing a disulfide-cleavage-triggered probe. These stable new ligands, containing a thioether (L1) and a disulfide bridge (L2), have been synthesized and evaluated for their photophysical properties in both solution and the solid state. Different fluorescence emission responses have been observed for both compounds due to the self-quenching nature of the disulfide bond in L2 compared to L1, with the latter reaching quantum yields close to 50%. Efforts to characterize solute-solvent interactions through Kamlet-Taft studies have revealed a positive solvatofluorochromic response for both compounds. Furthermore, the aggregation-induced emission phenomenon was demonstrated at increasing water fractions. The presence of free thiol groups enhances the complexation ability, making L1 particularly beneficial for sensing Cu2+ and Hg2+ ions, achieving detection limits as low as 2 μM in the case of mercury. Finally, incorporating L1 into polymer-doped films demonstrated promising results as molecular thermometers, while the response of L2 to sodium dithionite underscores its potential for disulfide-cleavage-triggered applications.
