Browsing by Author "Laitenberger, Peter"

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    Development of sensors for the detection of clinically relevant substances using molecular imprinting
    (Cranfield University, 2009) Fowler, Steven A.; Piletsky, Sergey A.; Laitenberger, Peter
    This thesis investigates the development of sensing devices based on molecularly imprinted polymers for the detection of clinically relevant analytes. Three analytes were considered, metronidazole, creatinine and propofol. A molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was computationally designed for metronidazole and tested using SPE techniques. This polymer was then grafted onto a transducer surface using an immobilised initiator. Amperometric and impedance detection of metronidazole were investigated. The capacitive detection of creatinine was reproduced from the literature (Panasyuk- Delaney et al., 2002) as this approach could be applied to other MIPs to form a universal platform for sensor development. However, the sensors produced using this methodology were difficult to reproduce and attempts to improve them were unsuccessful. A model for capacitive electrodes was developed to explain the obtained results. To address the key challenges found in the aforementioned work, a dual polymerisable monomer was used as a conductive anchor for the amperometric and impedance detection of propofol. The developed amperometric sensors demonstrated very high sensitivity (limit of detection was below 5 µM), although the electrodes lacked in selectivity. In conclusion, this thesis illustrates some of the key areas which need to be considered in the development of MIP-based devices and investigates some innovative solutions to these problems.