Colorimetric molecular receptors for the sensing of acetate, fluoride and mercury based on Schiff’s bases

The real-time monitoring of biologically relevant anions and mercuric ion concentration in aqueous and physiological media and its quantitative determination across a large concentration range are of vital importance in environmental, health-care issues, industrial and scientific fields. Anion-like fluoride and acetate play an important role in a wide range of chemical and biological systems. This study reports the synthesis of a series of new molecular receptors based on Schiff’s bases by adopting a green strategy. The adopted procedures were simple and less complicated. A new simple colorimetric receptor based on salicylaldehyde Schiff’s bases sharing –OH and C=N moieties as anion binding sites have been successfully synthesized through one-step synthesis, and the sensing studies revealed that the receptors synthesized were found to be an elegant solution to the colorimetric sensing of the anions, especially acetate and fluoride.