Capsaicin is a natural product found in hot peppers and has both potent pain-inducing and numbing properties.  Capsaicin consists of three functional regions that are important for binding to appropriate receptors, allowing it to serve as an interesting target in the design of lanthanide chelates for sensing capsaicin.  Designed for detecting capsaicinoids in aqueous solution, terbium complexes with ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) bis-amide ligands have been synthesized with pendant methyl, phenyl, and functionalized thiourea groups.  The Tb(III) emission is drastically augmented upon titration with a model capsaicinoid.  A series of capsaicinoids gradually increasing in hydrophobicity has been synthesized to determine the best candidates for detecting naturally-occurring capsaicin in commercial product samples.  The synthesis of the Tb (III) complexes and capsaicinoids, along with the luminescence titration studies, shall be presented.

Evaluation of the luminescence response of a series of EDTA bis-amide Tb(III) chelates to  capsaicinoids

246th National Meeting (2013)

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