Supramolecular detection of solvent vapours with calixarenes: Mass-sensitive sensors,molecular mechanics and BET studies

Chemical sensors, based on highly mass sensitive QMB or SAW devices, coated with thin layers of calixarenes, enable the detection of organic solvent vapours, especially halogenated or aromatic hydrocarbons, down to a few ppm. Force field calculations allow the tailoring of these sensor materials seeing that the predicted interaction energies between the host molecules and a large variety of analytes are linearly correlated to the measured sensor effects. These correlations and also BET adsorption analysis prove the analyte recognition properties of these calixarene coatings to be mainly based on host/guest inclusion principles.