Modification of Polystyrene Morphology and its Influence to the Coated Zinc Phthalocyanine Layer and Frequency Change in QCM Sensor

Abstract

This study observed the influence of solvents on polystyrene regarding the layered morphologies of zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc) and its influence on the bovine serum albumin (BSA) immobilization on quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor. The larger surface width introduced by surface roughness of the polystyrene due to chloroform (CHCl3) as the solvents allows more ZnPc to be trapped within the polystyrene. Moreover, the wider surface width also increases the amount of ZnPc to be deposited on top of the polystyrene surface. Therefore, the ZnPc layer deposited onto polystyrene created with CHCl3 solvent is thicker than other solvents, which result in the largest ∆f of the ZnPc layer.