Achievement

IGERT fellow Jennifer Novotney designed and synthesized a conjugated porous polymer that was able to detect trinitrotoluene (TNT) in low parts per billion concentrations. A successful strategy based on fluorescence quenching of conjugated polymers has achieved commercial and military adoption for detecting TNT. Novotney is pursuing sensitivity gains in these materials by investigating emerging polymer architectures with either high surface area, long-range order, or both. Investigating different processing methods, Novotney was able to achieve polymers with surface areas ranging from 6-630 m2/g, and able to isolate the first thin films of this type of material. Future work includes using these sensitivity increases to improve design of polymers for the detection of other low-volatility explosives.