Rational materials design of sorbent coatings for explosives: applicationswith chemical sensors

A series of chemoselective polymers had been designed and synthesized to en hance the sorption properties of polymer coated chemical sensors for polyni troaromatic analytes. To evaluate the effectiveness of the chemoselective c oatings, a polynitroaromatic vapor test bed was utilized to challenge polym er coated surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices with different explosive vapo rs. Dinitrotoluene detection limits were determined to be in the < 100 part s per trillion ranges. ATR-FTIR studies were used to determine the nature o f the polymer-polynitroaromatic analyte interactions, and confirm the prese nce of hydrogen-bonding between polymer pendant groups and the nitro functi onal groups of polynitroaromatic explosive materials. (C) 2001 Elsevier Sci ence B.V. All rights reserved.