Characterization of plasma-enhanced teflon AF for sensing benzene, toluene, and xylenes in water with near-IR surface plasmon resonance.

Near-IR surface plasmon resonance is used to characterize Teflon AF films for refractive index-based detection of the aromatic hydrocarbon contaminants benzene, toluene, and xylenes in water. The technique requires no sample preparation, and film sensitivity is found to be enhanced by oxygen plasma etching. A diffusion equation model is used to extract the diffusion and partition coefficients, which indicate film enrichment factors exceeding two orders of magnitude, permitting a limit of detection of 183, 105 and 55 ppb for benzene, toluene, and xylenes, respectively. The effect of other potential interfering contaminants is quantified.