Abstract
Carboxylates are attractive target analytes in supramolecular analytical chemistry. 22 acyclic synthetic receptors with different numbers and geometric arrangements of hydrogen‐bond donors (HBD) and hydrophobic moieties have been applied to experimentally study selective binding of 11 carboxylate anions of widely differing basicity, hydrophobicity and steric demand, which resulted in 242 accurately determined binding constants. It was found that besides the basicity of the anions, structural and steric factors of anions and receptors influence the binding. Several interesting cases are pinpointed and analysed. The ability of selected receptors to discriminate between anions according to structural features (hydrophilicity, substitution at α‐carbon, etc.) is demonstrated. The present results give insight into carboxylate anion binding and make an important step towards systematic development of receptors with useful selectivity patterns and thereby to the practical use of receptor series in sensor arrays for carboxylate fingerprinting in mixtures.
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