Metalloporphyrins immobilized in styrene-trifluoroethylmethacrylate copolymer film as an optical oxygen sensing probe

A series of new fluoropolymer, poly(styrene-co-trifluoroethylmethacrylate) (poly-Sty(n)-co-TFEMm), with different composition ratios of Sty and TFEM units, is synthesized and applied to the matrix of an optical oxygen sensing probe using phosphorescence quenching of metalloporphyrins, platinum and palladium octaethylporphyrin (PtOEP and PdOEP), by oxygen. The phosphorescence intensity of PtOEP and PdOEP in poly-Sty(n)-co-TFEMm film decreased with increase of oxygen concentration. The ratio I-0/I-100 is used as a sensitivity of the sensing film, where I-0 and I-100 represent the detected phosphorescence intensities from a film exposed to 100% argon and 100% oxygen, respectively. For PtOEP in poly-Sty(n)-co-TFEMm film, I-0/I-100 ratios are more than 20.6 and large Stern-Volmer constants greater than 0.49%(-1) are obtained compared with PtOEP in PS film. For PdOEP in poly-Sty(n)-co-TFEMm film, on the other hand, large I-0/I-100 values greater than 188.7 are obtained. In both cases for PtOEP and PdOEP, I-0/I-100 values increased with increase of the number of TFEM units in poly-Sty(n)-co-TEEMm. The response times of PtOEP and PdOEP immobilized in poly-Sty(1)-co-TFEM2.50 films are 5.5 and 3.0 s on going from argon to oxygen and 90.0 and 143 s from oxygen to argon, respectively. These results show that PtOEP and PdOEP immobilized in poly Sty(n)-co-TFEMm films are highly sensitive devices for oxygen. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.