Triple Action Sensing Behaviour of a Single Receptor for the Detection of Multiple Analytes via Different Approaches.

The thiosemicarbazide based receptor was synthesized with 4-(diethylamino)salicylaldehyde and N- phenyl-thiosemicarbazide by the simple condensation method and the properties were studied under the naked eye, UV-Vis and fluorescence studies etc. The synthesized receptor detects cyanide, cobalt, and mercury in acetonitrile medium. The observed color changes included colourless to yellow for cyanide, colourless to green for cobalt and colourless to yellow for mercury which were seen under naked eye without the aid of any instruments. Furthermore, the cyanide bound receptor detects Cr3+ by the relay recognition method. The detection limit of receptor with cyanide, cobalt & mercury was found to be 5.8 × 10- 7 M, 3.6 × 10- 7 M and 8.1 × 10- 7 M respectively. Experimental results were verified by DFT calculations. Receptor was successfully employed in the construction of INHIBIT and IMPLICATION logic gates.