Engineering catalytic organic-inorganic materials for sensing applications

© 2020 Pietro Pacchin TomaninNanostructured hybrid organic-inorganic materials are a unique class of materials showing distinctive properties that have attracted high interest due to their diverse applications in the fields of energy, environment and medicine. In particular, hybrid materials are promising candidates for sensing applications due to the tunable chemical, structural and functional properties of the organic and inorganic components. Hence, the engineering of novel nanostructured catalytic organic/inorganic materials provides opportunities for the fabrication of advanced nanodevices for biosensing. In this thesis, novel hybrid materials have been prepared and their electrocatalytic, catalytic, and optical properties explored. First, nanostructured electrocatalytic microparticles were synthesized in mild conditions and used with an organic binding agent to prepare carbon electrodes applied in the detection of glucose in biologically relevant media. Second, hierarchically structured hybrid particles displaying enzyme-like catalytic activities were synthesized and used to prepare high-throughput micro-reactors for the detection of bioanalytes via a hybrid organic-inorganic cascade reaction. Finally, a natural occurring polysaccharidic nanoparticle, i.e. glycogen, was engineered to impart adhesive functional properties to a hybrid film and used for the coating of various substrates with different chemical composition. These hybrid coatings embedding metal nanoparticles were employed as catalytic and optically active functional interfaces