Corrole Polymers as a Novel Materials for Room Temperature Resistive Gas Sensors

Abstract

Corroles, a family of contracted porphyrinoids, exhibit broad chemical interactions, undergo straightforward synthetic preparation and functionalization, and enable versatile thin film deposition. These attributes render them promising candidates for use in chemical sensors. Nevertheless, the inherently limited conductivity of corrole solid films constrains their application in mass and optical sensors. Despite this impediment, there is a great interest in matching the sensitive properties of the corrole with the features of facile miniaturization and integration into low-cost electronic circuits. This work explores the possibility of directly and simply depositing conductometric polymeric films of [5,10,15-(4-aminophenyl)corrolato] copper onto interdigitated electrodes. Remarkably, the electropolymerization protocol allows the selection of the semiconductive nature (p- or n-type) of these films, yielding two distinct sensor types: the former exhibiting high sensitivity and selectivity toward nitrogen monoxide (NO) with a slight influence of relative humidity and the other manifesting a broad spectrum of sensitivities. This breakthrough lays the foundation for developing miniaturized conductometric gas detectors, nonlinear conductometric sensing elements, and electronic nose platforms based on polycorroles.