ANR ALPS-Water - English

Alkali Luminescent Lanthanide‐Free Polyoxometalate Salts for Water Sensing

January 1st 2025 – Décember 31th 2028

Project coordinator : Rémi DESSAPT PR UNIV (MIOPS team)

Partners :
Separative Sciences and Methods Laboratory (SMS) ‐ University of Rouen

Polymers, Biopolymers, Surfaces Laboratory (PBS) ‐ University of Rouen

Persons of IMN iinvolved :
Olivier HERNANDEZ (PR UNIV), Florent BOUCHER (DR CNRS), Nicolas STEPHANT (IE UNIV), Nicolas GAUTIER (IE CNRS)

Total financing: 491 957€  with 262 271€ for IMN

 

The detection and quantification of water traces in liquids and relative humidity (RH) in gas are critical for many technological and industrial applications. Water photoluminescent (PL) sensors are increasingly investigated due to their high sensitivity and ability of in situ detection. However, new sustainable, reusable and recyclable sensors are highly desirable. The ALPS-Water project gathers three partners (IMN, SMS and PBS) and purposes to investigate the potentiality of new anhydrous alkali salts of the lanthanide-free polyoxometalate [SbW₆O₂₄]^7- (SbW₆), to reversibly scavenge and optically detect water in the air and in organic solvents.These materials are elaborated via low-energy and eco-friendly syntheses, and they exhibit high recycling potential. Upon exposure to water at room temperature, they rapidly convert to hydrates, resulting in strong PL quenching effects due to H-bonding interactions between SbW₆ units and water molecules. Moreover, the anhydrous phases are regenerated by soft thermal treatments (T ≤ 200 °C) and they robustly withstand repeatable hydration/dehydration procedures. In this series, Na₇[SbW₆O₂₄] senses RH with a limit of detection (LOD) of 2.2% RH, and at least detect water traces in acetonitrile. Further investigations are necessary to streamline the reactivity of the anhydrous salts towards water that is rather complicated owing to the existence of intermediary hydrates with distinct PL responses. Thus, the project’s partners will mobilize complementary cultures, skills and resources to enrich this class of materials, to investigate phase relationships between (an)hydrated salts, and tooptimize their sensing performances.The integration of alkali SbW₆ salts into polymer matrices will be also investigated in order to elaborate new sensing devices with improved applicability