A comparative study of four 20-membered N2S4-crown ethers as ionophores for polymeric membrane silver

Four 20-membered N2S4-monoazathiacrown ethers have been synthesized and explored as neutral ionophores for Ag+-selective electrodes.Potentiometric responses reveal that the flexibility of the ligands has great effect on the selectivity and sensitivity to Ag+ions.The electrode based on ionophore 9,10,20,25-tetrahydro-5H,12H-tribenzo[b,n,r][1,7,10,16,4,13]tetrathiadiaza cycloicosine6,13-(7H,14H)-dione(C)with 2-nitrophenyl octyl ether(ο-NPOE)as solvent in a poly(vinyl chloride)(PVC)membrane matrix shows a measuring range of 1.0 × 10-6 to 1.0 × 10-3 mol/L with a Nemstian slope of 54.9 ± 0.3 mV/decade.This electrode has high selectivity for Ag+with negligible interference from many other cations and can be used in a wide pH range of 3.6-9.2.