Recognition of iron ions by carbazole–desferrioxamine fluorescent sensor and its application in total iron detection in airbone particulate matter

Abstract This work reports on an efficient microwave irradiation synthesis of a new fluorescent chemosensor based on desferrioxamine B (DFO-B) and carbazole moiety. Furthermore, this novel chemosensor was employed for a comparative study of real environmental samples of airbone particulate matter collected from Dunkirk (Northern of France). Among selected relevant metal cations present in its airbone particulate matter, such as Na + , K + , Mg 2+ , Ca 2+ , Al 3+ , Cr 3+ , Mn 2+ and Zn 2+ , this molecular device proved to be outstandingly sensitive toward Fe 3+ with a limit of detection of 1.49 ppb (2.1×10 −8  M) in methanol allowing the estimation of total iron in atmospheric particles.