Colorimetric and fluorogenic determination of Ti3+ ions via nitro-to-amine conversion of nitronaphthalimides

Abstract

Ti3+ is one of the most fundamental chemical species, and is widely used in a variety of chemical and industrial applications due to its unique and valuable characteristics. In this work, novel reaction-based probes for the selective and sensitive determination of Ti3+ concentration were developed based on 3- and 4-nitronaphthalimides. The probes exhibited selective colorimetric and fluorogenic Ti3+ signaling via the nitro-toamine transformation, even in the presence of representative background metal ions and anions. The Ti3+ signaling of the probe became more pronounced as the acidity of the solution was increased to highly acidic conditions. The signaling was accomplished in less than 10 min, and the detection limit was found to be 7.64 x 10(-6) M. The technique was applied to the Ti(3+ )assay of commercial TiCl3 reagents using an easily available office scanner as a signal capturing device.