Design and synthesis of a novel “turn-on” fluorescent probe based on benzofuran-3(2H)-one for detection of hydrazine in water samples and biological systems

Abstract Hydrazine is a very important industrial chemical with high toxicity to the human body. In this work, a fluorescent probe HZ, based on the substitution-cyclization-elimination cascade which initiated by hydrazine, was designed and synthesized. HZ had various characteristics such as high selectivity, high sensitivity, fast detection speed, wide application range, and so on. After treating with hydrazine, the fluorescence signal of HZ at 520 nm in aqueous solution was significantly enhanced. Furthermore, HZ had the linear range of 1–10 equivalent for monitoring hydrazine, and the solution showed a colorless to yellow color change. In practical application, the detection limit of HZ for the detection of hydrazine was only 0.75 μM, which could be utilized for trace detection of hydrazine in different water samples. These indicated that HZ had a broad application prospect in the fields of environmental protection and water treatment. This work not only provided a useful instrument for the detection of the ecological environment but also supplied important information for the system optimization of other ecological environment detectors. In addition, HZ could monitor endogenous and exogenous hydrazine in MCF-7 cells successfully, which demonstrated its potential for practical application in complex biological systems.