Chemical warfare agents (cwas) are considered as the most nefarious synthetic chemical derivatives. despite strict restrictions after the implementation of the chemical weapons convention (cwc) in 1997, use of cwas by military personnel continues to escalate to gain political supremacy, military power, and other interests. in the act of terrorism, consumption of cwas have severely been threatened the humankind and homeland security as well. in this context, phosphorus containing g-series nerve agents such as sarin (gb), soman (gd), and tabun (ga) belong to the lethal class of cwas. they are colorless volatile liquids, which are extremely toxic. for instance, use of sarin in the tokyo subway terrorist attack (1995), had caused thousands of injuries and casualties. recently, destructive activities of cwas by an airstrike in syria (2017), had involved sarin or similar toxic cwas. thus, in view of public safety and national security, a facile and portable operation at minimal cost and effort to detect sarin is of global interest. although, progress has been made in the field of nerve gas detection using either uv-vis or fluorimetric technique or both concurrently, however no other optical spectroscopy (e.g. cd) has been developed for this purpose. dual channel detection is clearly a superior choice in this regard. however, it requires two different instruments. hence, there is an urgent need for the development of dual mode detection protocol that would be operative in a single instrument. in this work, we have reported an unprecedented single operative method involving simultaneous cd cum uv-vis absorption techniques found in the modern cd spectrophotometers offering instant detection of a selective organophosphorus species without any sample pre-treatment. thus, demonstrates a significant advancement over state-of-the-art materials/compounds reported in the contemporary work. being potent inhibitors of serine proteases (such as acetylcholinesterase, ache), nerve agents become lethal within minutes after inhalation. toxicity of nerve agents arises from the kinetically and thermodynamically favorable nucleophilic attack of the hydroxyl group of ache on the electrophilic phosphorus site of na, followed by the phosphoesterification of the alcohol functionality. thus, nerve agent blocks the breakdown of acetylcholine in synapses causing neurological imbalance in the cholinergic synapse. eventually, the disruption of the neurotransmission signal leads to the paralysis of the central nervous system, organ failure, and demise. using this mechanistic approach, researchers have developed several optical sensors, which are based on the nucleophilic attack of the hydroxyl group of the probe onto the organophosphorus (op) compounds. later, replacement of the alcohol group by the more nucleophilic oxime have appeared in the literature for the detection of organophosphorus species. although, probes are known for the detection of sarin simulants, we are not aware of any probe involving a cd active compound that changes its dichroic signal upon interaction with the sarin simulant diethylchlorophosphate (dcp). herein, we report the first example of enantiopure chiroptical sniffers for sarin simulant. furthermore, this endeavor reports the simultaneous cd and uv-vis absorption techniques based instant recognition of dcp, which is unprecedented. upon fabricating cellulose acetate bio-polymer with the chioptical probe yielded a chiroptode (i.e. chiroptical membrane), which showed a naked eye observable color change on exposure of dcp vapor at 1 ppm level.
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