Chemo-mechanical joint detection with both dynamic and static microcantilevers for interhomologue molecular identification.

The study presents a novel chemo-mechanical joint-sensing method to distinguish a certain molecule from its homologous chemicals, using both a resonant cantilever for gravimetric sensing and a static cantilever for surface-stress sensing. Homologous amines of trimethylamine (TMA, Me(3)N), dimethylamine (DMA, Me(2)NH), and monomethylamine (MMA, MeNH(2)) are herein used as model objects for investigation. The molecular identification is based on experimental characterizations on both molecule adsorbing capability (by the resonant cantilever) and intermolecular lateral interaction (by the static cantilever). The intensities of the two sets of sensing signals are expected to be in opposite sequence with each other, due to the complementary relationship among the interhomologue molecule structures, i.e., a molecule containing a greater number of methyl substituents must possess a fewer number of nonsubstituted hydrogens. On the basis of the proposed idea, ppm-level vapors of the three amines are sequentially detected by a resonant microcantilever to characterize the molecular adsorption speed and another static cantilever to characterize the intermolecular lateral attraction induced surface stress. From the experiment, a pair of opposite sequence in sensing-signal amplitude has indeed been obtained that verifies the proposed joint-sensing method. In addition, the two sensing signals both show a linear relationship with chemical concentration (at low-concentration range). Further comparison between the two sensing results can help to build a model to identify the molecule among a series of its homologous chemicals by eliminating the influence from concentration. Since a complementary relationship among homologous molecule structures widely exists, the dual-sensing method is promising in on-the-spot rapid molecular identification among homologous chemicals.