Exposure to even very low levels of lead, cadmium, and mercury ions is known to cause neurological, reproductive, cardiovascular, and developmental disorders, which are more serious problems for children particularly. Accordingly, great efforts have been devoted to the development of fluorescent and colorimetric sensors, which can selectively detect lead, cadmium, and mercury ions. In this critical review, the fluorescent and colorimetric sensors are classified according to their receptors into several categories, including small molecule based sensors, calixarene based chemosensors, BODIPY based chemosensors, polymer based chemosensors, DNA functionalized sensing systems, protein based sensing systems and nanoparticle based sensing systems (197 references).

Quantitative determination of specific analytes is essential for a variety of applications ranging from life sciences to environmental monitoring.

This tutorial review focuses on the recent development of rhodamine derivatives, in which the spirolactam (non-fluorescent) to ring-opened amide (fluorescent) process was utilized.

Over the last decade, organic photothermal therapy (PTT) agents have attracted increasing attention as a potential complement for, or alternative to, classical drugs and sensitizers involving inorganic nanomaterials.