Towards portable kits for on-site colorimetric detection of aqueous hydrazine using piperidine-thiophene-barbituric acid push-pull probe

Owing to the carcinogenicity and environmental risks as well as the wide industrial use of hydrazine, we report herein a colorimetric probe for its ratiometric detection in pure water. The developed probe possesses push-pull architecture with 2-(piperidyn-1-yl)thiophene as the donor, N,N’-dibutylbarbituric as the acceptor, and butadiene as the spacer. In contrast to weak solvatochromic behavior in organic solvents, the probe showed distinct optical photophysical properties in water resulting from the formation of nanoscopic aggregates. The probe underwent pronounced spectral changes upon the addition of hydrazine including an 11.5-fold decrease in absorbance and ~2.4-fold fluorescence quenching. The mechanistic investigation revealed the rapid formation of hydrazone upon the interaction of the probe with hydrazine via retro-Knoevenagel reaction as confirmed experimentally and corroborated with DFT calculations. The induced colorimetric and fluorometric changes were utilized in hydrazine sensing with excellent selectivity over other biologically relevant analytes with a detection limit of 0.76 µM in aqueous media. The practical utility of the probe was assessed in real-life natural water samples, while we have also developed a cost-effective portable kit for the on-site hydrazine detection both in the solution and vapor phases.