The double-armed diazacrown ethers, which have a base diazacrown ether ring with two diamide-type side chains, were designed and synthesized on the basis of the proposed molecular model for the novel neutral Ca2+ and Mg2+ ionophores. The potentiometric ion-selective electrodes were prepared with over 20 kinds of systematically synthesized diazacrown ether derivatives. The relationship between the molecular structures of the ionophores and the ion selectivities was fully discussed. The electrodes based on the 21and 18-membered diazacrown ether derivatives possessing a glycolic diamide and malonic diamide in their side chains (K23E1 and K22B5) exhibited excellent Ca2+ and Mg2+ selectivities, respectively. The ion-selectivity features of the novel Ca2+ and Mg2+ ionophores supply important structural information about the design of host molecules for alkaline earth metal cations.Calcium is one of the essential electrolytes in the human body, and its biological actions nave been actively investigated.1'* 12 345678*For monitoring this important electrolyte, a calcium ion-selective electrode, which is a convenient chemical sensor, has been successfully developed and utilized.3-5 Magnesium is also an important blood electrolyte. Nevertheless, despite the large demand for monitoring Mg2+ in human and animal bodies, a Mg2+selective electrode with adequate characteristics satisfying the requirement for blood analysis has not been developed to date. In the past, several Mg2+-selective ionophores for an ion-selective electrode, which were mostly /3-diketone types, were investigated.4-9

Several 14-membered thia crown ether ionophores having a bulky block subunit were synthesized, and their chemical structures and ion selectivities were examined in detail when these compounds were used as an ion-sensing component of an ion-selective electrode. The ionophores of both cyclic and noncyclic thia ethers exhibited a high selectivity for silver ion (Ag(+)), in which the sulfur atom in the ionophore molecule plays a role as the effective coordination donor site for the silver ion. The best Ag(+)-selective electrode was prepared with the 14-membered thia crown ether having one sulfur atom, three oxygen atoms, and a bulky pinan subunit. The ion selectivity of this electrode for Ag(+) was over 10(4) times that for other metal cations. In the case where the sulfide in the thia ether ionophore was changed to sulfoxide by oxidation, ion selectivity for mercury ion became higher; therefore, the sulfoxide was found to be an effective coordination site for the mercury ion. The ion selectivity features of noncyclic sulfide, sulfoxide, and sulfone were also examined and compared with the results of the cyclic and noncyclic thia ethers.

A novel ammonium ionophore, which exhibits superior NH4+ selectivity compared with that of the natural antibiotic nonactin, was successfully designed and synthesized based on a 19-membered crown compound (TD19C6) having three decalino subunits in the macrocyclic system. This bulky decalino subunit is effective for (1) increasing the structural rigidity of the cyclic compound, (2) introducing the "block-wall effect", which prevents forming a complex with a large ion, and (3) increasing the lipophilicity of the ionophore molecule. In the ammonium ionophore design, the first factor contributes to increasing the NH4+ selectivity relative to smaller ions such as Li+, Na+, or even the closest size, K+, and the second factor increases the NH4+ selectivity over larger ions such as Rb+ and Cs+. The X-ray structural analysis proved that TD19C6 forms a size-fit complexwith NH4+ in its crown ring cavity. As an application of this ionophore, an ion sensor (ion-selective electrode) was prepared, which exhibited NH4+ to K+ and Na+ selectivity of 10 and 3,000 times, respectively. This electrode showed a better performance compared to the electrode based on nonactin, which is the only ammonium ionophore presently used in practical applications.