Anion Recognition and Sensing: the State of the Art and Future Perspectives

Anion recognition chemistry has grown from its beginnings in the late 1960s with positively charged ammonium cryptand receptors for halide binding to, at the end of the millennium, a plethora of charged and neutral, cyclic and acyclic, inorganic and organic supramolecular host systems for the selective complexation, detection, and separation of anionic guest species. Solvation effects and pH values have been shown to play crucial roles in the overall anion recognition process. More recent developments include exciting advances in anion-templated syntheses and directed self-assembly, ion-pair recognition, and the function of anions in supramolecular catalysis.