Highly sensitive and selective water -soluble fluorescent probe for the detection of formaldehyde in leather products

Excess formaldehyde (FA) provides a significant threat that causes irreversible damage to both the environment and human health, and long-term FA emission from commercial leather products is a significant problem. Therefore, to help control the FA content, we propose a fluorescence-based method to detect FA selectively using a reaction-based probe FAP-1. Water-soluble FAP-1 was simply synthesized through two steps and the optical properties of FAP-1 towards species relevant to leather making were evaluated. Then a number of genuine leather samples were analyzed to reveal the FA content. Compared with the international standards, the fluo-rescence method was competitive to the 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNPH) reaction-based HPLC method, and superior to the acetylacetone (ACAC) reaction-based UV?Vis method. As a result of its reliability, low-cost, simple synthesis, ease of operation with reduced measurement time compared with standard methods, our method exhibits great potential for the analysis of FA found in other industrial products.

Automated summary

The study proposes a fluorescence-based method for detecting formaldehyde by synthesizing a water-soluble probe FAP-1 and successfully using it for formaldehyde analysis in genuine leather samples. Compared with traditional HPLC and UV-Vis methods, the fluorescence method is more competitive and promising.