A Biphasic Mercury‐Ion Sensor: Exploiting Microfluidics to Make Simple Anilines Competitive Ligands

Abstract

Combining the molecular wire effect with a biphasic sensing approach (analyte in water, sensor-dye in 2-methyltetrahydrofuran) and a microfluidic flow setup leads to the construction of a mercury-sensitive module. We so instantaneously detect Hg(2+) ions in water at a 500 μM concentration. The sensor, conjugated non-water soluble polymer 1 (XFPF), merely supports dibutylaniline substituents as binding units. Yet, selective and sensitive detection of Hg(2+) -ions is achieved in water. The enhancement in sensory response, when comparing the reference compound 2 to that of 1 in a biphasic system in a microfluidic chip is >10(3) . By manipulation of the structure of 1, further powerful sensor systems should be easily achieved.

Aggregation-Induced Energy Transfer of Conjugated Polymer Materials for ATP Sensing

“…Electrons delocalize along the π-conjugated backbones of CPs and can amplify changes in fluorescent signals, which is especially valuable for constructing sensitive chemo- or biosensors. Detection mechanisms can be classified into two categories: measuring changes in fluorescence intensity at a single wavelength; − and measuring the change of a ratio of fluorescence at two wavelengths (ratiometric fluorescence). − Ratiometric fluorescence detection is based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between an energy donor and an acceptor. This interaction is strongly dependent on the distance between the energy donor and acceptor and can be altered by analyte interactions leading to variation in the FRET efficiency and corresponding signal output.…”

Smart Polymers in Micro and Nano Sensory Devices

“…Also, sensors based on conducting polyaniline are employed to detect Hg 2+ cations, by means of resistivity variation, with very low detection limits (ppb) [26]. The importance of the Hg 2+ detection is also reflected in several recent works [27][28][29][30]. Finally, other cations such as Pd 2+ and Pt 4+ are detected through the fluorescence variation of different sensory polymers [31,32].…”

“…(For additional information, please see references [141,144,145,148,150,151,156,160]). [183][184][185] Quartz Crystal Microbalances Piezoelectric [14,114,130,146,[186][187][188][189][190][191][192] Microfluidic devices Optical [27,128,150,[193][194][195]] Electrical [148,190] Modified electrodes Electrochemical [26,99,[152][153][154][155][196][197][198][199][200][201][202] Sensory chips Optical [161,[193][194][195] Table 2. Cont.…”