Butylated Hydroxy Anisole-Based 1,2,3-Triazole Probe for Fluorescent Recognition of Cu(II), Fe(III), with Masked Sensing of Ce(III).

Employing Copper(I)-catalyzed alkyne-azide cycloaddition (CuAAC), an efficient and stereoselective technique, has led to the creation of 1,2,3-triazole derivatives notable for their capability to trace specific metal ions. In this report, a chemical sensor probe BHT based on butylated hydroxy anisole (BHA) was synthesised via CuAAC approach and characterized through spectroscopic techniques comprising Infrared Spectroscopy, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, and Mass Spectrometry. On conduction of the chemosensing analysis through UV-Visible and fluorescence spectroscopy in 80% solution of acetonitrile in water, the chemosensor probe selectively recognized Cu(II) and Fe(III) metal ions among a variety of metals tested. In addition to this, the synthesised 1,2,3-triazole based chemosensor also exhibited 'masked-sensing' of Ce(III) ions which remained obscured during the preliminary studies. The sensor probe demonstrated substantially low limits of detection for every metal ion; with the values being 4.48 µM, 3.02 µM, and 1.91 µM for Cu(II), Fe(III), and Ce(III) metal ions respectively.