An Exploration of the Metal Dependent Selectivity of a Metalloporphyrins Coated Quartz Microbalances Array

Several studies in the last two decades have demonstrated that metalloporphyrins coated quartz microbalances can be fruitfully used in many diverse applications, spanning from medical diagnosis to environmental control. This large versatility is due to the combination of the flexibility of metalloporphyrins molecular design with the independence of the quartz microbalance signal from the interaction mechanisms. The nature of the metal atom in the metalloporphyrins is often indicated as one of the most effective tools to design differently selective sensors. However, the properties of sensors are also strongly affected by the characteristics of the transducer. In this paper, the role of the metal atom is investigated studying the response, to various volatile compounds, of six quartz microbalance sensors that are based on the same porphyrin but with different metals. Results show that, since quartz microbalances (QMB) transducers can sense all the interactions between porphyrin and volatile compounds, the metal ion does not completely determine the sensor behaviour. Rather, the sensors based on the same molecular ring but with different metal ions show a non-negligible common behaviour. However, even if limited, the different metals still confer peculiar properties to the sensors and might drive the sensor array identification of the pool of tested volatile compounds.