An Organocobalt–Carbon Nanotube Chemiresistive Carbon Monoxide Detector

• Published in: ACS sensors Vol. 1; no. 4; pp. 354 - 357
• Main Authors: Liu, Sophie F, Lin, Sibo, Swager, Timothy M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 22.04.2016
• Subjects: carbon monoxide; gas sensor; cobalt; carbon nanotubes; chemiresistor
• ISSN: 2379-3694; 2379-3694
• DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.6b00005

A chemiresistive detector for carbon monoxide was created from single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) by noncovalent modification with diiodo­(η5:η1-1-[2-(N,N-dimethylamino)­ethyl]-2,3,4,5-tetramethylcyclopentadienyl)-cobalt­(III) ([Cp∧CoI2]), an organocobalt complex with an intramolecular amino ligand coordinated to the metal center that is displaced upon CO binding. The unbound amino group can subsequently be transduced chemiresistively by the SWCNT network. The resulting device was shown to have a ppm-level limit of detection and unprecedented selectivity for CO gas among CNT-based chemiresistors. This work, the first molecular-level mechanistic elucidation for a CNT-based chemiresistive detector for CO, demonstrates the efficacy of using an analyte’s reactivity to produce another chemical moiety that is readily transduced as a strategy for the rational design of chemiresistive CNT-based detectors.