Deep Eutectic Solvent-Based Highly Sensitive Turn-On Fluorescent Probe for D<sub>2</sub>O
Sushil M. Patil, Santosh K. Gupta, Dibakar Goswami, Ruma Gupta
Abstract
High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Owing to the importance of heavy water in spectroscopy, nuclear energy generation, chemical characterization, and biological industry, a design of a robust, cheap, nontoxic, and sensitive D 2 O sensor is very important. In this work, taking advantage of the singular emission fluorescence of the deep eutectic solvent prepared in our laboratory, we propose a first of its kind highly sensitive turn-on fluorescent sensor to effectively sense D 2 O at an ultratrace level based on rapid exchange of the labile DES proton with deuterium. This method can be used as a full-range heavy water detection strategy with a limit of detection of 0.079% (v/v) or 870 ppm. The isotopic purity (IP) obtained from DES fluorescence measurements is also in close agreement with that of the conventional FT-IR method. The current DES-based sensor thus allows both sensing and isotopic purity of D 2 O and can serve as one of the most sensitive monitoring strategies for heavy water analysis.