SUPRAMOLECULAR DETECTION OF SOLVENT VAPORS WITH CALIXARENES - MASS-SENSITIVE SENSORS, MOLECULAR MECHANICS AND BET STUDIES

Chemical sensors, based on highly mass sensitive QMB or SAW devices, c oated with thin layers of calixarenes, enable the detection of organic solvent vapours, especially halogenated or aromatic hydrocarbons, dow n to a few ppm. Force field calculations allow the tailoring of these sensor materials seeing that the predicted interaction energies betwee n the host molecules and a large variety of analytes are linearly corr elated to the measured sensor effects. These correlations and also BET adsorption analysis prove the analyte recognition properties of these calixarene coatings to be mainly based on host/guest inclusion princi ples.