Design, synthesis and evaluation of chromo and fluorogenic chemosensors to detect liquid ecstasy

Resumen

The present PhD thesis entitled “Design, synthesis and evaluation of chromo and fluorogenic chemosensors to detect liquid ecstasy” is based on the supramolecular host-guest interactions to develop new chromo-fluorogenic probes to detect liquid ecstasy, a drug of abuse with a great social concern currently, in drinks or beverages. For this purpose, the first part of this research work has been divided into four chapters, where in each one is described the synthesis, characterization and evaluation of different sets of organic molecules as chromo and/or fluorogenic chemosensors of liquid ecstasy. Every set of molecules was designed considering the complementarity between the functional groups present in the analyte and in the probes. The paradigm of detection of every probe is based on acid-base reactions, aggregation or redox reaction. The synthetized sensors have proved not only considerably notable limits of detection, but also selective sensing in complex matrixes such as drinks, allowing their use in real samples. Additionally, it has been proved the suitability of one of the sensors to detect another family of drugs of abuse, synthetic cathinones. The last part of the thesis, included as an annex, describes the scientific social project called NoSUM. In this project, the main objectives have been to contact with university students to allow them to know about the troublesome situation with liquid ecstasy, develop a personal use kit to immediately detect this drug in drinks or beverages and test it in a real environment by these students and receive the feedback to improve it.