Recent developments in transition metal ion detection by luminescent chemosensors

Chemosensors find wide applications in many disciplines such as biochemistry, clinical and medical sciences, cell. biology, analytical chemistry and environmental sciences. Aiming to develop new chemosensors for future applications. we have synthesised and studied many different species. We present here the latest luminescent chemosensors for transition metal ions studied in our laboratory. In the various systems active units and receptors are different as are the target ions: Zn2+, Ni2+, Cd2+, Hg2+, Co2+, Ag+ and Cu2+. In solution a good selectivity and affinity was observed and the binding is signalled in all cases by pronounced changes in the photophysical properties such as emission wavelength and intensity, and excited state lifetime of the inserted luminophore. The mechanism for signal transduction depends strongly on the chosen receptor and luminophore moieties, and has been investigated in detail by means of steady state and time resolved spectroscopy. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.