Naphthalimide Based Fluorophore for the Detection of Hazardous Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)

The naphthalimide molecule (NAP) was successfully synthesized and characterized by spectroscopy techniques. The NAP probe was exposed to a solvatochromic and aggregation-induced emission (AIE) probe using UV-visible and PL spectroscopy. In this case, the increased polarity of the solvent shows that it is red-shifted. The probe emission, a sky blue to yellow-green color at hexane to DCM, exhibited an excellent quantum yield. Meanwhile, the high-polar solvents of DMF and DMSO had poor quantum yields. This probe NAP showed the aggregation-induced emission property dramatically enhanced the emissions (at 540 nm) from f_w = 80–90%. NAP was conducted with two polar solvent vapors in hexane and chloroform to investigate VOCs in a further solid-state study. A real-life test paper kit NAP probe was prepared and investigated VOCs detection against hexane and chloroform. When exposed to hexane vapors, the NAP probe test kit showed sky blue emission under UV light, which returned to greenish emission upon exposure to chloroform. Therefore, the results show that this NAP probe can be used for gas leak detection applications.