Preparation of chemosensor materials based on silica nanoparticles with covalently anchored fluorophores by inkjet printing

Abstract

Samples of sensor layers containing a mixture of spherical silica gel microparticles and spherical macromolecular silica sol nanoparticles have been prepared by inkjet printing. The average diameter of microparticles is 5 μm; nanoparticles about 100 nm in diameter contain covalently anchored fluorophore, dibenzoylmethane boron difluoride (DBMBF2), on the surface. The microstructure of the layers is shown to considerably affect the availability of the fluorophore indicator for gas-phase analyte molecules of the methylbenzene group. The sensitivity of the sensor layers is shown to reach 0.5 ppm with a response time of about 100 s.