A new class of silica-supported chromo-fluorogenic chemosensors for anion recognition based on a selenourea scaffold.

The first example of a chemosensor (L) containing a selenourea moiety is described here. L is able to colorimetrically sense the presence of CN- and S2- in H2O : MeCN (75 : 25, v/v). Moreover, when L is loaded into functionalised mesoporous silica nanoparticles an increase in the selectivity towards S2- occurs via a selective fluorescence response.