Aggregation-Induced Emission-Based Material for Selective and Sensitive Recognition of Cyanide Anions in Solution and Biological Assays

[Image: see text] Cyanide is one of the highly poisonous pollutants to our environment and toxic to human health. It is important to develop the widely applicable methods for their recognition to secure safe uses for people coming into contact and handling cyanide and their derivatives. In this regard, the aggregation-induced emission materials possess high potential for the development of simple, fast, and convenient methods for cyanide detection through either “turn-off” or “turn-on”. Among the AIE-based materials, tetraphenylethylene is a promising sensor for various sensing applications. In this paper, we have designed and synthesized a TPE-based chemosensor, which shows high sensitivity and displays good selectivity for cyanide (CN(–)) over others in the presence of interfering Cl(–), I(–), F(–), Br(–), HSO(4)(–), H(2)PO(4)(–), NO(3)(–), HCO(3)(–), and ClO(4)(–) anions employed. The naked-eye, UV–vis, and fluorescence methods are employed to evaluate the performance of probe 1 toward CN(–) detection. From these experiments, CN(–) ions can be detected with a limit of detection as low as 67 nM, which is comparatively lower than that of the World Health Organization (WHO) permissible limit of the cyanide anion, that is, 1.9 μM. From the Job’s plot, the 1:1 stoichiometric complexation reaction between probe 1 and CN(–) was found. The probe was efficiently applied for the detection of CN(–) ions using a paper strip method. The probe 1 also showed the potential of detecting CN(–) ions in various food items and in the cell line.