Cover Feature: Selective Phase Transfer Reagents (OxP‐crowns) for Chromogenic Detection of Nitrates Especially Ammonium Nitrate (Chem. Eur. J. 58/2020)

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A color-based detector for ammonium nitrate consists of crown ether-appended oxoporphyrinogens, the OxP-Crowns, which extract ion pairs into an organic phase based on cation binding at crown ether and anion complexation. Selective mauve chromogenic response is observed when ammonium nitrate, commonly used in improvised explosive devices, is extracted from water to chloroform providing a simple test. As illustrated, a network of responses is found when considering other anions and aqueous phase pH. More information can be found in the Full Paper by J. P. Hill et al. on page 13177.