Main researcher: Eduardo García Breijo
Team members

• Membrane electrodes

The development of potentiometric ion-selective electrodes is an area of interest. These are used on a wide range of application to determine ions in aqueous media. They are simple and relatively cheap methods, robust lasting and ideal for use in the field(in situ and at site) Additionally, they are fast and an interesting tool for the development of environmental measuring equipment. They measure activity and not concentration, and the measure is not affected by turbidity or colour presence. There is a high number of ion-selective electrodes for cations and there is a relatively lower amount of them for anions. In IDM we are specially interested on the development of new ion-selective electrodes for anions using the Insitute’s capacity of selective ligand organic synthesis for certain anionic species. Hence, in all published works the iophonores were developed by the Institute.

Studies aimed at developing electrodes for certain anions of environmental interest such as phosphate and sulphate are currently being carried out. they are done through the design and synthesis of highly selective ligands for the tetrahedral anions.

• Analytical instrumentation applied to environmental control

This research line of analytical instrumentation applied to environmental control works on the designing of final measuring devices for water’s quality control. In relation to this topic, the IDM takes advantage of the experience of several of its researchers (1), on the one side the group which develops ion-selective electrodes, (2) a second group which works on designing electrodes in thick-filmtechnology and (3) a third work group in analytical chemistry.

New monitoring equipment is constantly being developed for several applications such as its use in sewage, fish farms, etc.

• Electronic tongues and noses

The term electronic tongue is related to the so-called electronic noses. They are based on the use of non-specific sensorarrays that, combined with pattern recognition techniques allows obtaining information of complex mixtures. The electronic nose is used for gas analysis while the electronic tongue does the same in liquids. Here the strategy lies on using a group of sensors which respond non-specifically but differentially to a group of chemical species. In this strategy, the main idea is not to analyse independent chemical compounds but to obtain images of more general attributes (such as quality, a certain taste or smell, etc.) which may be common to other more complex systems.

Linking this concept and that of the chromogenic chemical sensors, we are working on the manufacturing of “electronic eye” prototypes in order to detect “with the naked eye” chemical species of interest based on supramolecular recognition processes.