An anion structure-activity relationship of imidazolium-based synthetic transportersWe are grateful to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies, and the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Université de Montréal for financial support.Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Experimental procedures and characterization data. See DOI: 10.1039/c2md20107k

We have developed imidazolium-based salts as a new recognition motif with strong anionophoric properties across phospholipid bilayers. We present here factors intrinsic to the imidazolium salts that allow the modulation of their ionophoric properties. We also report the kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of the most active imidazolium salt. We present imidazolium-based salts as a new recognition motif with strong anionophoric properties across phospholipid bilayers, as well as their kinetic and thermodynamic parameters.