Solid‐Supported Synthesis of Azine‐Bridged Unsymmetrically Functionalized Ferrocenyl Architecture, Device Fabrication, and Sensing of Toxic Agents in Aqueous Medium and Gas Phase

Solid-supported synthesis of azine-bridged unsymmetrically functionalized di-ferrocenyl compounds and their water-soluble, di-(1-hydroxyethyl) derivative has been carried out to explore their electro-chemosensing behavior toward selective recognition of toxic agents, picric acid and phosgene gas, in aqueous, nonaqueous medium, and vapor phase using an electrochemical approach. The functional feature at the ferrocenyl moiety has been tactically used to generate water-soluble diferrocenyl-based bridged-azine, which showed detection of low levels of picric acid in aqueous medium. An intermediate has been isolated and characterized, which revealed the involvement of selective functionalization using the RHA-mediated solid-state synthetic method. All the azine-bridged ferrocenyl derivatives with non-equivalent redox centers have been structurally confirmed using a single-crystal X-ray diffraction study. Furthermore, a multicontroller Arduino-based electronic device has been fabricated along with the sensor part for detecting the toxic phosgene gas and demonstrating the capability to electronically detect low levels of phosgene gas.