A 1,2,3-triazolyl based conjugated microporous polymer for sensitive detection of p-nitroaniline and Au nanoparticle immobilization

Abstract

A 1,2,3-triazolyl based fluorescent conjugated microporous polymer PTPTB was synthesized through FeCl₃ promoted oxidative coupling of 1,3,5-tris(1-(3,5-di(thiophen-2-yl)phenyl)-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)benzene. The resulting product has a BET surface area of 808.6 m² g⁻¹ and exhibits a strong emissive peak centered at 525 nm upon excitation at 417 nm in DMF. As a chemical sensor, PTPTB showed good fluorescence sensing ability for p-nitroaniline (p-NA) with a K_sv of 7.08 × 10⁴ M⁻¹ and a detection limit of 4.2 × 10⁻⁶ M. The electron-rich polymer was further employed to load Au nanoparticles (NPs). The formed Au/PTPTB composite showed superior catalytic activity in the catalytic reduction of p-nitrophenol (p-NP) to p-aminophenol (p-AP) and the rate constant was obtained to be 0.812 min⁻¹. Moreover, the catalyst can be readily recovered and reused for six runs without obvious loss of its activity.