Perylene-Derived Poly(Vinylene Sulfide) as an Electrochemical Sensor for Environmental Heavy-Metal Monitoring

Rapid industrialization has led to the accumulation of persistent heavy-metal contaminants in aquatic environments, posing significant ecological and public health concerns due to their toxicity and bioaccumulative nature. Although conventional analytical methods provide high accuracy, they are often expensive, time-consuming, and reliant on sophisticated instrumentation. Electrochemical sensing platforms offer a rapid, cost-effective, and portable approach for trace-level detection. In this context, conducting polymers have emerged as attractive sensing materials because of their tunable electronic properties, stability, and high sensitivity. Herein, we report the synthesis of a perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA)- and 4,4-thiobisbenzenethiol (TBBT)-based conducting polymer via thiol-alkyne click polymerization. The PTCDA unit functions as a strong electron acceptor, exhibiting reversible redox behavior, whereas TBBT incorporates additional heteroatom donor sites that provide effective coordination centers for metal-ion binding. The synthesized polymer was characterized using various spectroscopic techniques and applied as an electrochemical sensor for Cu 2+ and Pb 2+ detection. The polymer exhibited good electrical conductivity (7.2 × 10 –3 S cm –1 at room temperature) and enabled a sensor with excellent sensitivity, selectivity, reproducibility, and ease of fabrication, demonstrating strong potential for heavy-metal monitoring in real environmental samples.