A cyanobiphenyl-based fluorescent ''lighting-up'' sensor for highly selective and sensitive recognition of Al: Theoretical, practical and bioimaging studies.

The recognition of toxic Al in foods and biosystems has of great interest to researchers. Herein, a novel cyanobiphenyl-based chemosensor CATH (E)-N'-((4'-cyano-4-hydroxy-[1,1'-biphenyl]-3-yl)methylene)thiophene-2-carbohydrazide was fabricated and shown to recognize Al in HEPES buffer:EtOH (90:10, v:v, pH = 7.4) by ''lighting-up'' fluorescence sensing. The CATH evidenced high sensitivity (LOD = 13.1 nM) and excellent selectivity to Al over competing cations. The Job's plot, TOF-MS and theoretical computation studies were performed to probe the binding mechanism of Al to CATH. Additionally; CATH was successfully utilized to practical applications and employed to recover of Al from different food samples. More importantly, it was employed to intracellular Al detection in living cells including THLE2 and HepG2.