Quinoline-based hydrazone for colorimetric detection of Co and fluorescence turn-on response of Zn.

A quinoline-based hydrazone, namely, bis((quinolin-8-yl)methylene)carbonohydrazide (1), has been designed and synthesized, which could be used as a dual probe for selective recognition of Co and Zn by monitoring changes in absorption and fluorescence spectral pattern, respectively. The detection limits of 1 for these two ions are 0.21 and 0.66 μM, respectively. The complex formation between 1 and Co/Zn is responsible for the detection process, as confirmed through several spectral methods and DFT calculations. The application of the as-synthesized sensor is demonstrated in Zn imaging in living cells.