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RESEARCH PROGRAM

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Keywords
CHEMICAL SENSORS, LUMINESCENCE, SIGNAL AMPLIFICATION, THIN FILMS, NANOSTRUCTURED MATERIALS

Opto-active molecular systems, conjugated polymers, and nanoparticles for the development of new chemical sensors.

Università degli Studi di Bologna
Abstract
The research activity described in this project will follow all the necessary steps for the development and the application of chemical sensors based on optical transduction principles.
A particular attention will be devoted to the rational design, to the synthesis and then to the characterization of the compounds intended to be exploited as sensing materials in the sensors described in this program. The families of compounds selected for this purpose belong to the scientific background of the RUs involved in the project; therefore, our research will focus on the design and synthesis of luminescent chemosensors, nanoparticles, conjugated polymers and porphyrinoids. These systems will be conceived to have molecular recognition properties for the detection of chemicals both in solution and in gaseous phase. Such a synthetic activity will be carried out in cooperation with the different URs and, in order to optimize and enhance the properties of these systems, the obtained receptors will be integrated on nanoparticles and conjugated polymers able to provide high signal amplification. Within the project, in order to develop a chemical sensor, deposition of thin layers of the resulting materials on a convenient transducer will be studied. The optimization of the deposition techniques will be performed together with the necessary photophysical characterization of the obtained film, so as to study the preservation in the solid state of the chemosensing features. The >>>

Principal Investigator
Luca Prodi Università degli Studi di BOLOGNA
Research Objectives
The final goal of this research program is the synthesis and the characterization of novel molecular materials, conjugated polymers and nanoparticles to be exploited as sensing layers for the fabrication of new optical devices, able to monitor the concentration of target analytes both in gaseous and liquid phase. In particular, this project will be focused on three connected lines. In the first one, we planned to continue the development of new chemosensors, since, as described in the section assigned to the state of the art, this is the first step for the design of efficient and reliable devices. We believe that this step is still of great importance and, as a consequence, that is necessary to go forward in this direction. In details, in the framework of this project we will try to identify specific chemosensors for the detection of metal ions (fluorescent chemosensors have been initially developed for this purpose) and anions (less has been done in this direction) to be used in biomedical and environmental applications, which represent the driving force, as mentioned in the state of the art section, for the chemical sensors field. For these reasons the development of efficient molecular chemosensors is the first aim in this project, both for the great scientific relevance and for the possible direct applications, especially in cellular biology. In the second place, we will also focus, according to the general directions of the international research, where the groups >>>

First Results
As already reported in the previous sections, the results we are expecting from this project are numerous. As presented in our scheme of section 13, they can be listed as follows:
1) Synthesis and characterization of chemosensors for anions and metal ions, with the following expected results:
a) From a synthetic point of view, we expect to obtain new fluorescent chemosensors able to selectively recognize target analytes (mainly toxic metal ions, inorganic anions with high environmental impact, and carboxylic and phosphate anions of biological importance) in aqueous solution. The designed chemosensors for anions will present polyamine receptors and/or their metal complexes as receptors, together with suitable photoactive units; they will be able to detect quantitatively the target analyte through a “ratiometric response” to the coordination of the substrate.
The designed chemosensors for metal cations will be once again polydentate ligands, mainly having a macrocyclic skeleton, but, in addition to fluorescent units, they will present soft donor atoms in their structure.
b) These chemosensors usually show a pH-dependent response. In this context, one of the result awaited is the understanding of the relationship between the structure of the receptors in solution and their optical fluoro- and/or chromogenic properties. This result can be reached by coupling speciation studies in solution, spectrometric and fluorometric measurements and MD or MM/MD >>>

Timescale
24 months
National and international background
The development of chemical sensors is dramatically changing the potentialities of chemical analysis. Classical methodologies require collection, transportation, eventual pretreating of the sample, and, in many cases, expensive instrumentation to be used only by trained staff. Chemical sensory devices have been conceived to bypass these restrictions since they are cheap and userfriendly analytical tools. In addition, if properly designed they allow to monitor in situ analyte concentrations in real time and, eventually, in real space. [1-16] Such characteristics explain why chemical sensors have already found wide application in many fields, such as environmental monitoring, process control, food and beverage analysis, medical diagnosis, and, lately, in monitoring toxic gases and explosives for security reasons. [2–13] It is evident that all these fields are of great importance from a social and economic point-of-view. This is testified by the exponential increase of the market of chemical sensors especially since 80’s, and the latest assessments envisage a further enhancement of this trend. For example a recent study (2005, Freedonia Group Inc., Chemical Sensors to 2009) predicts that the demand for chemical sensors in the US will expand at a rapid 7.3 % annual pace to $4.1 billions in 2009, buoyed by continued strong demand for biosensor products in the medical and diagnostic industries, by increased spending on public safety and security in the face of a potential >>>