Water fluorination is widespread in the US but excessive exposure to fluoride can trigger serious conditions such as skeletal fluorosis. To prevent such side effects, fluoride anion sensors that can be used in water are desirable. Lewis acidic main group compounds including boranes such as Mes3B and silanes such as Ph3SiF bind fluoride in organic solvents but not in water. In this presentation we will describe an alternative approach based on the use of organostiboranes such as (2,2'-C12H8)PhSb(O2C6Cl4) (1  ), a square-pyramidal stiborane first isolated by Holmes.1 NMR and UV-Vis monitoring shows that stiborane 1  readily binds fluoride under both biphasic (water/CH2Cl2) and homogeneous (water/THF) conditions. Unfortunately, 1   does not give any notable photophysical response when converted into [1  -F]-. In this presentation, we will show that this issue can be resolved by replacing the tetrachlorocatecholate ligand of 1 by a chromophore such as alizarin red.1. Holmes, R. R.; Day, R. O.; Chandrasekhar, V.; Holmes, J. M. Inorg. Chem. 1987  , 26, 157.

Organoantimony(V) Lewis acids as colorimetric and turn-on fluorescence fluoride sensors

247th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.