Recently, researchers have paid extensive attention to colorimetric/fluorimetric probe development and its applications in biological and industrial samples. The actual development of such probe molecules, however, often requires an iterative process to achieve certain goals such as selectivity and sensitivity toward a target analyte. In spite of growing interest in the development of practical molecular probes, there has not been much effort to implement the synthesis of detector molecules and the examination of their structure–reactivity relationship in undergraduate laboratories. A straightforward synthesis of copper probe molecules, which are systematically varied with aromatic substituents, is described to compare the reactivity toward copper(II) ion. The comparative kinetic study can readily visualize how the number and position of aromatic substituents affect the reactivity. This experiment is appropriate to demonstrate how mechanistic understanding will provide significant insight into rational design of practical colorimetric/fluorimetric probe molecules.

中文翻译：

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反应型铜（II）探针的合成和比较动力学研究，以可视化芳族取代基对反应性的影响

最近，研究人员对比色/荧光探针的开发及其在生物和工业样品中的应用给予了广泛的关注。然而，此类探针分子的实际开发通常需要迭代过程以实现某些目标，例如对目标分析物的选择性和敏感性。尽管人们对实用分子探针的开发兴趣日益浓厚，但在本科生实验室中，尚未进行太多努力来实现检测器分子的合成及其结构-反应关系的检查。描述了一种铜探针分子的直接合成方法，该方法随芳香族取代基的变化而系统地变化，以比较其对铜离子的反应性。对比动力学研究可以很容易地看到芳族取代基的数量和位置如何影响反应性。该实验适合于证明机械理解如何为实际比色/荧光探针分子的合理设计提供重要的见识。