Boronic esters as ionophores for potentiometric discrimination of the cis-trans isomeric dicarboxylic acids

Boronic esters incorporated into a poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC)-supported liquid membrane electrodes have displayed an anionic ionophore properties enabling their use in the potentiometric high-throughput screening procedures. These compounds belong to the class of ligands in which the anion recognition process can be explained on the concept of Lewis type acid-base interactions. Membranes containing boronic esters showed fairly good sensitivity for maleate (cis-isomer) in comparison to fumarate anions (trans-isomer). The potentiometric selectivity coefficients of proposed electrodes proved that common anions did not interfered with the maleate anion determination. The influence of structure of the three boronic esters ionophores on generation of potentiometric signal by developed liquid membrane electrodes was shortly discussed.