Highly Facile Strategy for Detecting DO in HO by Porphyrin-Based Luminescent Probes.

Owing to their almost similarities in size, shape, and chemical reactivity, effectively distinguishing deuteroxide (DO) in water (HO) remains an ongoing challenge, and the examples of a DO probe are still quite scarce. Herein, since HO can decrease the lifetime of a singlet oxygen as a vital intermediate and an H/D exchange in the luminescence process of porphyrins, we systematically investigated the enhanced ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis), photoluminescence (PL), and electrochemiluminescence (ECL) of water-soluble tetrakis(carboxphenyl)porphyrin (TCPP) in DO. The findings showed that these luminescent properties had been greatly enhanced with the increase of the DO fraction in water. Consequently, we first developed the highly facile methods of detecting DO in HO by the UV-vis, PL, and ECL of TCPP, respectively. Impressively, the ECL analysis exhibited a great superiority with a lower detection limit of 0.29 nM. The work not only achieves the challenging task of distinguishing between HO and DO but also provides a unique strategy to enhance the luminescent performance of porphyrin.