Water-Soluble Cationic Conjugated Polymers: Response to Electron-Rich Bioanalytes

We report the concise synthesis of a symmetrical monomer that provides a head-to-head pyridine building block for the preparation of cationic conjugated polymers. The obtained poly(pyridinium-phenylene) polymers display appealing properties such as high electron affinity, charge-transport upon n-dop...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rochat, Sebastien, Swager, Timothy Manning
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemistry
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Chemical Society (ACS) 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/84619
Description
Summary:We report the concise synthesis of a symmetrical monomer that provides a head-to-head pyridine building block for the preparation of cationic conjugated polymers. The obtained poly(pyridinium-phenylene) polymers display appealing properties such as high electron affinity, charge-transport upon n-doping, and optical response to electron-donating analytes. A simple assay for the optical detection of low micromolar amounts of a variety of analytes in aqueous solution was developed. In particular, caffeine could be measured at a 25 μM detection limit. The reported polymers are also suitable for layer-by-layer film formation.