A Supramolecular Fluorescence Probe for Caffeine

Abstract

[structure: see text] Supramolecular sensing is rather limited to charged analytes. This report describes a practicable assay for caffeine, which employs a competitive "indicator-displacement" approach and allows detection by fluorescence. A simple analytical protocol is described that allows quantitation of caffeine in beverages.

Make Caffeine Visible: a Fluorescent Caffeine “Traffic Light” Detector

“…Recently, Waldvogel group reported the first artificial caffeine receptor, which is based on hydrogen bonding22. Subsequent research modified this receptor to achieve better binding affinity and selectivity2324252627. Nevertheless, these interactions only occur in organic solvent which is not eligible in real life usage.…”

Molecular recognition of caffeine in solution and solid state

“…Fluorimetric methods convince by their extreme sensitivity and the ease of designing the appropriate system [103,104] In III no emission from the receptor is observed [121]. require significant changes of the electronic structure and thus are limited to ionic analytes.…”

“…Caffeine is found in many soft drinks and in various analgesics. Due to its adverse effect on minors and pregnant women, it is a desirable method for the determination of caffeine content in the beverages [121].…”

Efficient electroorganic synthesis of 2,3,6,7,10,11-hexahydroxytriphenylene derivatives

“…The use of triphenylenes in discotic liquid crystals [1–2] as building blocks in supramolecular chemistry [3–4] as well as in solid-state chemistry [5] is well documented. Furthermore, triphenylenes are applied as components of functional polymers [6–7] and fluorescent labels [8–9]. Typically, the oxidative trimerization of catechol derivatives can be induced by metal salts in high oxidation states, for example by molybdenum pentachloride [4,10].…”