Electrospun Nanofibrous Membranes for Highly Sensitive Optical Sensors

The first use of electrospun nanofibrous membranes as highly responsive fluorescence quenching-based optical sensors for metal ions (Fe3+ and Hg2+) and 2,4-dinitrotoluene (DNT) is reported. A fluorescent polymer, poly(acrylic acid)−poly(pyrene methanol) (PAA−PM), was used as a sensing material. Optical chemical sensors were fabricated by electrospinning PAA−PM and thermally cross-linkable polyurethane latex mixture solutions. These sensors showed high sensitivities due to the high surface area-to-volume ratio of the nanofibrous membrane structures. The development of new approaches toward highly sensitive detection techniques remains a major challenge in the field of chemical sensing. It is widely accepted that the sensitivity of a sensor that detects analytes by interacting with molecules on the surface will increase with increasing surface area per unit mass. Therefore, considerable effort has been made to increase the surface area of the sensing interface in chemical sensors.1-5 However, these approaches either involve so-phisticated synthesis routes or cumbersome fabrication processes. Some of these techniques are also limited to