Construction of DCM-based NIR fluorescent probe for visualization detection of H2S in solution and nanofibrous film

Abstract Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) played crucial roles in biological processes and daily life, and the abnormal level of H2S was associated with many physiological processes. In this paper, we designed and developed a dicyanomethylene-4H-chromene (DCM)-based near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent probe DCM-NO guided by theoretical calculation. The probe displayed excellent selectivity towards H2S with a fast response time (3 min) and low detection limit (fluorescence 25.3 nM / absorption 6.61 nM) in Hela cells and real water samples. Furthermore, the probe-doped solid sensing materials (test strips and nanofibrous films) exhibited specific visualization of H2S under ambient light or hand-held UV lamp, providing great potential for on-site and real-time application in environmental and biological systems.