A resurgence in the application of chiral coordination complexes in the field of asymmetric synthesis and chiral discrimination technologies has been noticed in the literature. Furthermore, development of vanadium based stereodynamic probes for rapid and sensitive detection of the absolute configuration and enantiomeric excess (ee) calculation of chiral analytes has added a great momentum to this endeavour. Although, circular dichroism (CD) being considered as one of the powerful and robust technique for stereochemical analysis, herein we present four chiral oxovanadium(V) complexes as a versatile chiroptical (CD and UV-vis active) sniffers for the selective sensing of a nerve gas simulant e.g. sarin mimic diethylchlorophosphate (DCP). The phosphorous containing G-series nerve agents (NAs) are considered as the lethal class of chemical warfare agents (CWAs). In view of public safety and national security, a facile, portable and efficient technique operating at low cost for early detection of sarin is warranted to mitigate potential tragedy. Hence, a series of optically pure chiral oxovanadium sniffers (dual responsive UV/CD) has been developed, which were found to be highly selective towards sarin simulant. The chiroptical sniffers exhibited fast response time, accompanied by a chromophoric switch as well as change in dichroic signals, in presence of DCP only. Furthermore, the intermediate and the final adduct were also investigated through EPR and <sup>51</sup>V NMR, <sup>31</sup>P NMR, and other spectroscopic techniques. Additionally, a biodegradable cellulose acetate based chiroptical membrane (chiroptode) was fabricated with the complex, which also showed dramatic chiroptical changes upon exposure to DCP vapour. Hence, demonstrating the potential utility for on-site detection of sarin. Therefore, our findings provided a new paradigm towards the development of chiroptical sensors to detect sarin simulant, both in the vapour and solution phases.

Enantiopure chiroptical sensors for sarin simulant

ACS Spring 2022

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