Terphenyl based ‘Turn On’ fluorescent sensor for mercury

New terphenyl-based derivative 4 with pyrene as a fluorophore has been synthesized and examined for its cation recognition abilities toward various cations by NMR and fluorescence spectroscopy. The results show that it has very high binding affinity (log β = 5.12) and selectivity for mercury. A fluorescence enhancement of 375% was observed for the 4-Hg2+ system in THF. A Hg2+ selective electrode (ISE) was also formed which showed excellent selectivity over all the other cations tested. The lower limit of detection is 2.1 × 10−6 M.