Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Mesoporous Materials as Regenerable Sensing Systems for the Recognition of Nitroaromatic Explosives

[EN] Fluorescent organic-inorganic mesoporous hybrid materials have been prepared and characterised, and their behaviour against nitroaromatic explosives have been tested. MCM-41 silica was used as an inorganic scaffold and pyrene (P derivative containing trialkoxysilane moieties), dansyl and fluorescein (D and F derivatives also containing trialkoxysilane groups, respectively) fluorophores have been anchored on hybrid materials by a co-condensation method to obtain a homogenous distribution of dyes into the pores of the support. Six sensing materials have been prepared, of which SP, SD, SF were hydrophilic and SPh, SDh, SFh were hydrophobic. Template-free hydrophilic materials (SP, SD, SF)…