Impact of the Cationic Moiety of Ionic Liquids on Chemoselective Artificial Olfaction

Ionogels and derived materials are assemblies of polymersand ionicliquids characterized by high stability and ionic conductivity, makingthem interesting choices as gas sensors. In this work, we assessedthe effect of the ionic liquid moiety to generate ionogels and hybridgels as electrical and optical gas sensors. Six ionic liquids consistingof a constant anion (chloride) and distinct cationic head groups wereused to generate ionogels and hybrid gels and further tested as gassensors in customized electronic nose devices. In general, ionogel-basedsensors yielded higher classification accuracies of standard volatileorganic compounds when compared to hybrid material-based sensors.In addition, the high chemical diversity of ionic liquids is furthertranslated to a high functional diversity in analyte molecular recognitionand sensing.