Recent Trends in Chemsensor Evaluation: Techniques, Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Abstract: Chemsensors have been playing a crucial role in various aspects of biomedical science, analytical and environmental chemistry. The toxic metal ions like Zn, Cd, Cu, Pb and Hg have increased gradually but now have reached an alarming situation, crossing the threshold value. Due to high toxicity of these heavy metals there is an obvious need for a sensor system to detect their presence. Chemsensors prove very promising as the system is rapid, selective, sensible, low-cost, easy-to-use, and has the ability to provide real-time signals. An evaluation of various chemsensors known to us, proves their potential to serve human kind and therefore a deep and wide angle is required to cover these sensors.Apart from fluorescent, luminescent, optical,conjugate, gas, amide based chemsensors have also been developed. During recent times considerable efforts has been has been devoted to the synthesis of chemical compounds having the capability to sense or trap a particular toxic metal ion. A particular category of such compound being sterically encumbered selenium containing species. Due to large covalent radius and greater polarizability of selenium compared to Oxygen, Nitrogen & Sulfur which greatly influences the complexation properties of these compounds. Selenium containing hosts have been reported to display strong affinities with Hg2+ or Ag2+(environmentally toxic metal ions). As confirmed by physicochemical data the presence of multiple soft selenium donor, the flexibility of the arms, steric bulk and open exterior geometry make these molecules potent tool for trapping Hg (II) selectively. Hence such tailored ligand and complexes could serve a great potential for trapping environmentally toxic metal ion and thus has application as sensors. The integration of sustainable materials and self-powered sensing mechanisms further enhances the applicability of chemosensors in real-world scenarios. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of current evaluation techniques, identifies major challenges, and discusses future directions for developing more reliable and efficient chemosensors