Phosphonium Boranes for the Selective Transport of Fluoride Anions across Artificial Phospholipid Membranes. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • With the view of developing selective transmembrane anion transporters, a series of phosphonium boranes of general formula [p-RPh2 P(C6 H4 )BMes2 ]+ have been synthesized and evaluated. The results demonstrate that variation of the R group appended to the phosphorus atom informs the lipophilicity of these compounds, their Lewis acidity, as well as their transport activity. Anion transport experiments in POPC-based large unilamellar vesicles show that these main-group cations are highly selective for the fluoride anion, which is transported more than 20 times faster than the chloride anion. Finally, this work shows that the anion transport properties of these compounds are extremely sensitive to the steric crowding about the boron atom, pointing to the crucial involvement of the Group13 element as the anion binding site.

published proceedings

  • Angew Chem Int Ed Engl

altmetric score

  • 11.8

author list (cited authors)

  • Park, G., & Gabbai, F. P.

citation count

  • 19

complete list of authors

  • Park, Gyeongjin||Gabbaiï, François P

publication date

  • March 2020

publisher