Synthesis and Evaluation of Novel Crowned Coumarins as Self-Catalytic Fluorescence Reagents

Abstract Three coumarin reagents carrying crown-ether moieties as catalytic sites for the fluorescence derivatization of carboxylic acids were designed and synthesized. The catalytic abilities of these reagents were evaluated based on the stability constants (Ks) for complexation with metal acetates in methanol. The derivatization reactions of carboxylic acids with these reagents proceeded self-catalytically without crown-ether catalysts, and gave the corresponding coumarin esters in good yields. It was found that their reactivities significantly depended upon the metal-binding ability of the reagent molecules from kinetic treatments of the reactions. The derivatized products showed remarkably high fluorescence quantum yields of above 0.8 in methanol. These results suggested that the functionalization of reagents was a quite useful approach for the development of new-type analytical reagents.