Analyte sensing with unselectively binding synthetic receptors: virtues of time-resolved supramolecular assays.

The cross-reactivity to many analytes is one major limitation of most synthetic receptors (SRs) known so far. Herein, we show that through time-resolved competitive binding assays, even unselectively binding SRs can be utilized for analyte distinction and quantification. Furthermore, our methodology has also been applied to analyte mixtures and can be used in a microplate format.