Molecular imprinting in chemical sensing – Detection of aromatic and halogenated hydrocarbons as well as polar solvent vapors

The technique of molecular imprinting – a novel tool of sensor material synthesis – can be successfully combined with mass-sensitive transducers. Imprinted polymers are prepared in presence of inert analytes acting as molecular templates. The remaining imprint allows the molecular recognition of an analyte due to host-guest-interactions. The sensor properties of devices coated with imprint polymers can be tuned to the analyte by variation of the polymerization solvent and the amount of cross-linker added. A further sensitivity enhancement can be achieved by rising the resonant frequencies of QMBs and SAW resonators, since the signal to noise-ratio increases in an approximately linear manner with the oscillation frequency.