Three types of photonic crystal sensors, which were imprinted with bisphenol A (BPA), bis(2-hydroxyphenyl)methane (2HDPM), and phenol, were prepared, and their sensing performance in the absence or in the presence of the other two analytes were examined to clarify the interference of analogues in sensing. Results showed that all these imprinted sensors exhibited high selectivity, a broad linear range (0.4~120 mg/L), and low detection limits (0.4~0.5 mg/L) for their corresponding targets. However, the response was suppressed in the presence of the other two analogues. The inhibition was associated with the sizes and stereo-structures of both the imprinted cavities and interfering compounds. The sensing ability of the BPA-imprinted sensor was inhibited most by analogues because of a twisted structure of the imprinted cavities. Rather than small sized phenol molecules, large sized BPA and 2HDPM molecules were more capable of causing interference in the imprinted sensing system. The BPA- and 2HDPM-imprinted sensors got rid of interference when the target/analogue ratios increased, whereas similar inhibition in signals was found in the phenol-based sensing system. This finding reveals that formation of target/analogue complexes due to π-π interaction is responsible for the interference in the BPA- and 2HDPM-based systems, and blocking of imprinted cavities by the large-sized analogues is the reason for suppressed sensitivity of the phenol-based sensor.<br/>

Effects of analogue interferences on sensing performance of imprinted photonic crystal sensors

256th National Meeting (2018)

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