Chapter 3 - Conducting Polymers and Metal-Organic Frameworks as Advanced Materials for Development of Nanosensors

Abstract

Conducting polymers (CPs) are the important class of functional materials that possess some useful properties of both organic polymers (such as strength, plasticity, flexibility, toughness, elasticity) and semiconductors (e.g., electric conductivity). Moreover, ease of synthesis, convenient fabrication and modification, resistance to corrosion, cost-effectiveness, lightweight profiles, and good mechanical, optical, and conducting properties brand them as high-utility materials in diverse fields, especially in sensor technology. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a new class of coordination polymer materials. Their astounding porous properties, very large surface-to-volume ratios, high thermal and chemical stabilities, and possibilities of diverse signaling characteristics have made them materials of choice in numerous applications, including gas storage, catalysis, gas separations, biomedical imaging, drug delivery, and molecular sensing. Both the CP- and MOF-based sensors offer several advantageous features, such as enhanced sensitivity and selectivity, low limits of detection, low power consumption, requirement of small quantities of the samples to be analyzed, and enhanced stability. Therefore this chapter is compiled to provide information on the general synthesis methods used to develop various CPs and MOFs, along with their applications as nanosensor platforms for the detection of environmentally and biologically important analytical parameters.