The ability to sense volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has broad utility in determination of contaminant identity and concentration in solution. Metalloporphyrins exhibit a colorimetric response upon interaction with VOCs, due to changes to the metal’s coordination geometry and overall structure. These spectroscopically detectable changes can be enhanced by synthetically tailoring side chains that induce liquid crystallinity. Our focus is linking porphyrin and cholesterol species using odd parity spacers, thereby combining their strengths, to form thin film VOC sensors. Several synthetic methodologies, including Williamson etherification, palladium-mediated coupling, and carbodiimide esterification reactions have been explored with the goal of yielding a series of discotic, cholesteric liquid crystalline porphyrins to be used as VOC sensors.

Design and synthesis of cholesteric liquid crystalline porphyrin VOC sensors

251st National Meeting (2016)

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