Piperazine-based simple structure for selective sensing of Hg2+ and glutathione and construction of a logic circuit mimicking an INHIBIT gate

A simple chemosensor (1) has been designed and synthesized. The chemosensor selectively recognizes Hg2+ ions in THF-H2O (3 : 1, v/v) by showing a significant increase in emission and a bluish color of the solution under exposure to UV light. Change of the fluorophore unit in 1 leads to 2, which also shows selective sensing of Hg2+ under similar conditions. Furthermore, while the ensemble of 1 with Hg2+ selectively senses reduced glutathione (GSH) over cysteine and homocysteine, the ensemble of 2 with Hg2+ has been observed to be inefficient to distinguish glutathione from other biothiols. Thus probe 1 and inputs Hg2+ and GSH can be used to develop an INHIBIT logic gate.