| Electrically conducting polymers, ECPs, are widely investigated, not in the least because of their many potential applications in nanotechnology. The research in our group is on arylenevinylene (AV) polymeric and oligomeric derivatives with opto-electronic properties and particularly on the design of materials for conductometric gas sensors and for potentiometrie High Performance Liquid Chromatographic (HPLC) detectors. In the first phase of this work we focused on the characterisation of conducting polymers for Electronic Noses (EN). Later on we diverted the interest towards conducting AV oligomers, focusing on their performance in HPLC detection of nucleotides and oligonucleotides, and on the production and performance of odour sensitive AV oligomers for E-Noses. One of the reasons for the growing interest for the oligomers is that the application of oligomers in devices has its advantages. First, in many cases small molecules are easier to synthesise than polymers. Second, a larger number of substituents and monomers can be chosen which allows for a larger number of different sensor materials based on oligomers. Third, small molecules are often better soluble than polymers, which might lead to easier processing.;Potentiometric sensors in HPLC have been investigated and applied to organic acids, mononucliotides and oligonucleotides. More effort was made for the detection of mononucliotides and oligonucleotides. Coated wire electrodes were used, coated with liquid membranes in which, the novel receptor materials, macrocyclic amine and ureum derivatives were incorporated. The results show the unexpected, but certainly appreciated high responses of these multi-charged ions towards the ureum based receptors.;The last-but-not-least part of this work concerns conduct metric gas sensors applied in Electronic Noses (E-Nose). To make these gas sensors, we use AV oligomers, which are made electrically conductive in a process called doping. In this process an electron is removed from the AV oligomer (oxidation) to give a cationic redical ion. This becomes electrically neutral by incorporation of a negatively charged counter ion, such as ClO4-, BF4-, I2-, PF6 -, etc. Our objective is to produce such compounds by scalable methods and to test their robustness and response/recovery properties against a group of test gasses and/or to gasses that appear in practical situations. |
