A Deep Dive into Thiourea-Based Sensors for Cation Sensing

Thioureas are preferred structures in the disciplines of chemosensors, organic, and pharmaceutical field. Thioureas, a class of tuneable organosulfur compounds, and their derivatives are widely used in both biological and nonbiological fields. These compounds, which include sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) atoms, have nucleophilic characteristics that assist in intra- or intermolecular H-bonding among the molecules or analytes. Hence, the incorporation of the thiourea moiety into a wide spectrum of organic molecules has resulted in very versatile compounds with widespread applications in a variety of domains. Thiourea derivatives have been frequently produced and researched due to their chemosensing capability. Finally, in this work, a detailed comparison and analysis of the detecting capabilities of thiourea-based cation sensor is performed. The knowledge gained in this work will be extremely useful in future endeavours to create organic sensors based on Fluorescence (Fl) and colorimetry, for the recognition of physiologically relevant metal ions.