Issue 3, 2020

An ion-in-conjugation polymer enables the detection of NO2 with parts-per-trillion sensitivity and ultrahigh selectivity

Abstract

The detection of nitric dioxide (NO2) at the parts-per-trillion (ppt) level is critical for both environmental monitoring and human health. However, none of the chemiresistors reported to date can detect NO2 at the parts-per-trillion (ppt) level due to the low sensitivity of the sensory materials. In this work, an ion-in-conjugation polymer para-polyphenylsquaraine (p-PPS) was designed and fabricated into an NO2 chemiresistor. The sensor had the highest sensitivity of 1450 ppm−1 (at 100 ppb) and the lowest detection limit of 40 ppt among all reported chemiresistors. In addition, p-PPS showed ultrahigh selectivity, where other interfering gases had less than 1/1887th of the signal of NO2 under the same concentration (10 ppm). Calculations, in situ infrared spectroscopy and sum frequency generation spectroscopy (SFG) revealed that the ion-in-conjugation-inspired H-bonding between p-PPS and NO2 led to such high sensitivity. Our results highlight the potential of the concept of ion-in-conjugation in the design of highly sensitive gas sensory materials.

Graphical abstract: An ion-in-conjugation polymer enables the detection of NO2 with parts-per-trillion sensitivity and ultrahigh selectivity

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
19 okt 2019
Accepted
02 dek 2019
First published
03 dek 2019

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2020,8, 1052-1058

An ion-in-conjugation polymer enables the detection of NO2 with parts-per-trillion sensitivity and ultrahigh selectivity

C. Yu, H. Lin, J. Zhou, X. Cheng, J. He, H. Li, Q. Xu, N. Li, D. Chen and J. Lu, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2020, 8, 1052 DOI: 10.1039/C9TA11513G

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