Lewis acid-base interactions enhance explosives sensing in silacycle polymers.

ABSTRACT: The high sensitivity of silole- and silafluorene-containing polymers for detecting organic nitro, nitrate, and nitramine explosives cannot be solely attributed to favorable analyte-polymer hydrophobic interactions and amplified fluorescence quenching due to delocalization along the polymer chain. The Lewis acidity of silicon in conjugated poly(silafluorene-vinylene)s is shown to be important. This was established by examining the (29)Si NMR chemical shifts (Delta) for the model trimer fragment of the polymer CH(3)-silafluorene-(trans-C(2)H(2))-silafluorene-(trans-C(2)H(2))-silafluorene-CH(3). The peripheral and central silicon resonances are up-field from a TMS reference at -9.50 and -18.9 ppm, respectively. Both resonances shift down-field in the presence of donor analytes and the observe

SUBMITTER: Sanchez JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2727583 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature