Specific Recognition of Fluoride Anion Using a Metallamacrocycle Incorporating a Uranyl-Salen Unit

The design and synthesis of a novel fluoride receptor that uses a salen-complexed Lewis acidic uranyl center as the sole binding site is reported here. This receptor binds fluoride anions in DMSO with a high affinity constant (K > 106 M-1) and exhibits a negligible affinity (K < 10 M-1) towards otherwise effective competitors, such as acetate, phosphate and cyanide anions.