Investigation of crown-containing styrylthiophene derivatives which are optically and electrochemically sensitive to the presence of metal cations

Abstract The analysis of complex formation of crown-containing styryl and bisstyryl thiophene derivatives with alkaline earth metal cations and the investigation of optical and electrochemical responses induced by metal cations are reported. The monostyryl derivative forms weakly fluorescent inclusion complexes with Mg 2+ cations and weakly fluorescent anti- sandwich complex with Ba 2+ cations. In case of bisstyryl thiophene compounds the Mg 2+ complexes are fluorescent, whereas, the sandwich complex with composition ( 1b ) 2 ·(Ba 2+ ) 2 or ( 1b ) 2 ·(Ba 2+ ) 3 are weakly fluorescent. The results of the investigations showed that the crown-containing mono- and bisstyryl thiophene derivatives are optically and electrochemically sensitive to the presence of metal cations.