Synthesis and metal binding properties of N-alkylcarboxyspiropyrans

Spiropyrans bearing an N-alkylcarboxylate tether are a common structure in dynamic, photoactive materials and serve as colourimetric/fluorimetric cation receptors. In this study, we describe an efficient synthesis of spiropyrans with 2–12 carbon atom alkylcarboxylate substituents, and a systematic analysis of their interactions with metal cations using 1H NMR and UV-visible spectroscopy. All N-alkylcarboxyspiropyrans in this study displayed a strong preference for binding divalent metal cations and a modest increase in M2+ binding affinity correlated with increased alkycarboxylate tether length.

Abstract licence: CC BY

A person counts once a day per paper. We keep no cookie and no address: a reader is a hash that changes every day. Any month under five reads shows no number.