A Vapochromic and Chemoresistive Molecular Material for Sensing Volatile Amines

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are chemical species which can be produced naturally or from anthropogenic activities. Among them, volatile amines and nitrogen compounds, better known as total volatile bases (TVBs), are the most common because their formation is an indicator of microbial degradations of food.1 Despite the relatively low toxicity of VOCs, they can cause long-term health effects and their detection is difficult because of the concentration of these species is in general quite low. For these reasons, the development of a sensor having fast response, high sensitivity and selectivity for VOCs is highly desirable in environment pollution and food safety fields.2