A water-soluble tetraphenylethene based probe for luminescent carbon dioxide detection and its biological application

A water-soluble fluorescent CO₂ gas probe based on a tetraphenylethene derivative (TPE-ONa) has been developed. After bubbling CO₂ into the detection solution, a remarkable color change and fluorescence enhancement could be observed. A porous film was successfully fabricated by mixing TPE-ONa with sodium carboxymethyl cellulose in water, which can serve as an efficient CO₂ gas detection system. More importantly, TPE-ONa exhibits low cytotoxicity towards live cells and has the ability to monitor the external CO₂ concentration changes of living cells.