Interactions of metal ions with monolayers and with Langmuir-Blodgett films

Summary

Oriented systems such as monolayers and Langmuir-Blodgett multilayers constitute supramolecular structures appropriate for ion detection. In fact, they are sensitive to small quantities of ions since they have specifically oriented ligand head groups that can easily combine with the ions to be detected in solution. We investigated monolayers of dioctadecyldithiocarbamate (DODTC) specificially synthesized and we studied the interactions of the monolayers with transition metal ions such as Ni²⁺ dissolved in the subphase. The spreading isotherms, the surface potential-area isotherms and the spectroscopic measurements (UV-Vis absorption and ESCA spectroscopy) show that the metal ions can combine with the DODTC monolayers. The present findings show that it is possible to employ these systems to build chemical sensors for transition metal ions