Optical Chemosensors: Principles, Chemistry, Strategies, and Applications

Chemosensors for anions and cations detections have been extensively used in several disciplines, including pharmacology, environmental science, biology, and chemistry. This field which is a division of supramolecular chemistry has been known for more than 150 years. It deals with chemosensors that recognize and detect anions and cations via optical or electrochemical signals. Today, a sustainable variety of chemosensors are established to detect both anions and cations. Additionally, chemosensors can be used to construct a sensory device and extract, and separate anions and cations. Chemosensors can detect toxic anions such as fluoride and cyanide as well as cations like mercury. Thus, chemosensors have become an attractive area of supramolecular chemistry. This chapter focuses on both colorimetric and fluorometric optical chemosensors and their application for anions and cations detections.