Modifying polymers by self-organisation for the mass-sensitive detection of environmental and biogeneous analytes

Designing sensor layers towards a variety of analytes ranging from monomolecular compounds up to entire microorganisms is becoming an increasingly interesting task in modern analytical chemistry. Imprinting procedures lead to functional properties of polymeric materials, as the analyte itself is used as a template and generates adapted cavities that are suitable for re-inclusion. In this paper we present further advancements in the field, such as double imprinting procedures for the detection of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water; analyte separation for detecting organic solvents in water as well as the analysis of biogeneous analytes such as viruses. By double imprinting the sensitivity of polyurethane layers towards PAHs is increased by almost an order of magnitude and detection limits down to 100 ng/l pyrene are achieved. For the detection of organic solvents in wastewater the sensor is mounted above a membrane separating the liquid and the gas phase thus making use of the reduced noise level in gases. Contaminants can be detected in the low ppm-range by this method. Highly ordered structures of TMV imprints are produced by increasing the template surface concentration on the stamp which leads to an increase in sensor response by about a factor of 4. The resulting frequency shifts arise from the incorporation of virus clusters into the material.