Coordination Chemistry Review Published Paper by RBI Scientists
The RBI scientists Dr. Vesna Blažek Bregović, Dr. Nikola Basarić and Professor Kata Majerski from the Laboratory for Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Division of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, published an article in Coordination Chemistry Review, a prestigious journal with high impact factor (IF 2013 = 12.098).
The importance of anion receptors is a reflection of the ubiquitousness of anions, their functions in biological and industrial processes, as well as their behavior as pollutants.
In the immense field of anion receptor chemistry which has expanded greatly in the past few decades, one of the most prominent binding sites has been (thio)urea.
The abundance of articles describing thiourea and urea anion sensing, published form 1990s till present, prompted the authors to fill the gaps which previous review articles did not cover and organize the review in a comprehensive and critical manner, based upon the influence of the receptor structure to anion binding.
The aim of the review was to give a critical overview of the described sensing mechanisms, particularly in complex photophysical systems enabling optical sensing. The review containing 386 references classifies the urea and thiourea derivatives with respect to the complexity of the receptors and the number of urea groups in the molecule. The importance of the (thio)ureas in different supramolecular systems which found their application in sensing, membrane transport, crystal engineering, and material science is unquestionable, which signifies the value of this review to researchers in different fields of chemical science.