Sensors and Actuators B 257 (2018) 545–552 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical jo ur nal home page: www.elsevier.com/locate/snb Research Paper A visible light excitable chromone appended hydrazide chemosensor for sequential sensing of Al +3 and F − in aqueous medium and in Vero cells Rakesh Purkait a , Chiranjit Patra a , Ananya Das Mahapatra b , Debprasad Chattopadhyay b , Chittaranjan Sinha a,∗ a Department of Chemistry, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700 032, India b ICMR Virus Unit, Infectious Diseases & Beliaghata General Hospital, GB-4, 57,S. C. Bannerjee Road, Beliaghata, Kolkata − 700 010, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 13 May 2017 Received in revised form 27 October 2017 Accepted 28 October 2017 Keywords: Chromone-hydrazide Al +3 sensor Quenching with F − Cell imaging DFT computation a b s t r a c t A probe, quinoline-2-carboxylic acid (4-oxo-4H-chromen-3-ylmethylene)-hydrazide, (HL), acts as selec- tive and specific fluorogenic sensor to Al +3 in the visible light (435 nm) excitation in presence of biologically available large number of cations and emission appears at ( em ) 520 nm. The limit of detection (LOD) for Al +3 is 7.6 nM in aqueous medium which is less than 10 −3 times of WHO recom- mended data (7.41 mM). The Job’s plot and mass spectral data support 1:1 composition of the complex [Al(HL)(OH)H 2 O](NO 3 ) 2 . The strongly emissive complex turns off upon addition of F − and is detected at the level of (LOD) 7.4 nM. Thus, F − , a harmful water pollutant, could be identified at much lower level of WHO recommended toxic limit (3.68 M). The absorption and emission spectral features of HL and its Al +3 -complex have been explained by DFT computation of optimized geometries and calculation of molecular functions. The devised receptor is non-toxic and has been used in detecting Al +3 in the intra- cellular region of African green monkey kidney cells (Vero cells) and exhibits an INHIBIT logic gate with Al +3 and F − as chemical inputs by monitoring the emission mode at 520 nm. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Aluminium, a non-essential element and significantly avail- able on the earth’s crust (8.3% of total mass), is useful in the manufacturing of household utensils, water purification instru- ments, electrical wirings, and is entering into human body through foods and beverages [1]. It causes Al-related bone disease (ARBD), encephalopathy, myopathy and various neurodegenerative dis- eases such as, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinsonism dementia etc. in human body and can also damage plant roots [2–5]. World Health Organization (WHO) has assigned Al +3 as prime food pollutants with limiting concentration 200 g/litre (7.41 mM) and has recom- mended that tolerable weekly dietary human intake is 7.0 mg/kg body weight [6–8]. Thus detection of Al +3 in water is of urgent important for monitoring human health. Exploration of selective and sensitive chemosensor for detection of ions in solution has been of considerable attention with biological and environmen- ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: debprasadc@gmail.com (D. Chattopadhyay), crsjuchem@gmail.com (C. Sinha). tal interest [9–14]. Schiff base ligands have gained recent interest as fluorescent sensors for metal ions including Al +3 due to their relatively easy one step synthesis [15–24]. However, sensing of aluminum in aqueous medium have been rarely reported [25,26], mainly due to sparing or insolubility of organic probe in aqueous media. Therefore it is a challenging task today to develop new sen- sors for selectively detecting Al +3 in aqueous solutions. Besides, emissive Al +3 -complexes are serving as anion sensor, especially to F − [27–30] . Among the entire range of biologically useful anions, F − possesses significant potential in the prevention of dental caries and treatment for osteoporosis [31,32]. Conversely presence of excess of fluoride in the human body may be dumped as fluorapatite in the bones and teeth leading to osteoporosis, osteosclerosis, dental fluorosis and skeletal fluorosis [33–35]. Thus, it is quite important to develop an efficient F − sensor. The design of dual sensor which is capable to detect sequentially Al +3 and F − by fluorescence ON OFF signaling response is highly effec- tive. Recently, coumarin based molecular switch for the sequential detection of Al +3 followed by its use for F − sensing is reported [27,28]. Besides, rhodamine based [29] and quinaldine appended [30] chemosensors are also available for the detection of Al +3 and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2017.10.168 0925-4005/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.