Phosphate anions are one of most important constituents of living systems. Together with heterocyclic bases and sugars, phosphates make up the genes, the hereditary elements of living systems. In addition, phosphate ions and their derivatives play pivotal roles in signal transduction and energy storage in biological systems. [1] Numerous sensors for anions, including phosphate ions, have been devised, but most of them use organic solvents as the detection medium because these sensors rely on hydrogen-bonding and electrostatic interactions for the recognition of analytes. [2] These interactions are, however, attenuated drastically in a highly polar medium such as water, because of the competing solvation effect. [3] The detection of anions such as phosphate in water is, hence, a challenging task. [4] We report herein a colorimetric sensor that can detect phosphate anions in an aqueous solution of neutral pH values. The sensor is easy to assemble and shows a high sensitivity and excellent selectivity for phosphate ions over other anions.In assembling the sensor, we took advantage of metal± ligand interactions. Such interactions are so highly favorable that they occur even in polar media. Furthermore, the metal ion can present some geometrical preferences, thus imparting selective binding tendencies towards anions of a given shape. [5] 2,6-Bis(bis(2-pyridylmethyl)aminomethyl)-4-methylphenol (H-bpmp) was reported to form a crystalline dinuclear complex with Co II , [6] and Seo et al. reported that the phenylphosphonate anion binds to the dinuclear complex of Co III with H-bpmp by bridging the two metal ions. [7] These reports led us to explore the metal complex of H-bpmp as a receptor for phosphate ions. The dinuclear Zn II complex of H-bpmp was readily obtained by dissolving H-bpmp and zinc perchlorate in water; the complex is colorless and has a good water solubility, which are features desirable for using the complex as a receptor for a water-soluble chemosensor. We chose pyrocatechol violet, a catechol-type pH-sensitive dye, as the chromogenic indicator for the sensor. Catechols are known to coordinate to the two metal ions in a phenoxo-bridged binuclear metal complex. [8] Furthermore, it is known that the yellow color of pyrocatechol violet at neutral pH may change to blue when it binds to a metal ion. [9] Therefore, the displacement of the receptor-bound pyrocatechol violet by a phosphate anion would be communicated visually as well as spectrophotometrically. The competition approach [10] used for assembling the present sensor is schematically illustrated in Figure 1.The sensing ensemble was prepared by simply mixing Hbpmp, [11] zinc perchlorate, and pyrocatechol violet [12] in a 1:2:1 molar ratio in an aqueous solution of 10 mm HEPES buffer pH 7.0 (HEPES ¼ 2-[4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazinyl]ethanesulfonic acid). Figure 2 a shows the UV/Vis spectra obtained when the solution of [Zn 2 (H-bpmp)] 3þ was titrated into the aqueous buffer (pH 7.0) solution of the indicator (50 mm). The color change from ye...