The preliminary studies on the development of a plastic optical fiber (POF) sensor for ammonium sensing with molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP’s) is reported. A molecular imprinted polymethacrylate copolymer was obtained on the surface of the optical fibre by radical polymerization at high temperature. Ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) was used as template, methacrylic acid (MAA) and ethylene dimethacylate (EDMA) as functional and cross-linking monomers, respectively. The POF’s selected for this study are from Kiriama Pty Ltd, single-mode (SM) and multimode (MM) fibres with 320 μm and 150 μm diameter, respectively.
Work is in progress, in order to improve the sensor design parameters and characterize the sensor performance when in contact with solutions of different concentrations in ammonium.