New Principle for Simple Water Detection using Fluorescence Lifetime Triangulenium Probes

Abstract

AbstractThe fluorescence of phenol‐substituted ADOTA triangulenium fluorophores is quenched as function of the water content in acetonitrile. We investigate three phenol‐ADOTA derivatives in various solvent mixtures and conclude that water acts as a dynamic quencher by serving as a proton acceptor in a proton coupled electron transfer reaction with the excited ADOTA. Beyond the mechanistic insights into this quenching mechanism we demonstrate how these ADOTA dyes can probe the water content from a simple calibration free single‐point measurement of the fluorescence lifetime.