Analytical methods often involve
expensive instrumentation and
tedious sample pretreatment for an analyte detection. Being toxic
and detrimental to human health, sensing of cyanide (CN
–
), fluoride (F
–
), chloride (Cl
–
), bromide (Br
–
), nitrate (NO
3
–
), acetate (CH
3
COO
–
), and bisulfate
(HSO
4
–
) is performed by a boron-based
molecular receptor,
N
,
N
,
N
,3,5-pentamethyl-4-{2-thia-9-boratricyclo[8.4.0.0
3,8
]tetradeca-1(10),3(8),4,6,11,13-hexaen-9-yl}anili-nium (
1
), and the three newly designed receptors from it. Thermodynamics,
electronic structure, and photophysical properties are computed by
employing density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density
functional theory (TD-DFT) to explore selective sensing of these anions
and its mechanism. Free-energy changes (Δ
G
)
and binding energies (Δ
E
) suggest that among
these anions, only binding of CN
–
and F
–
is thermodynamically feasible with a very strong binding affinity
with the receptors. Boron atoms containing positive natural charges
act as the electrophilic centers to bind the anions involving a 2p–2p
orbital overlap resulting in charge transfer. In the receptor–analyte
complexes with CN
–
and F
–
, fluorescence
is quenched due to the intramolecular charge transfer transitions
(π–π* transitions in the case of the receptors
lead to fluorescence), internal conversion, and associated configurational
changes. Among the six tested functionals, CAM-B3LYP/6
-
31G(d) is found to be the most accurate one. The designed receptors
are better fluorescent probes for F
–
and CN
–
, demonstrating their importance for the practical
utility.