Students at the University of Brighton recently contributed to a world's first, in a paper entitled the "Detection of clinically important cations by a pillar[5]arene-modified electrochemical sensor".

The paper was a joint collaboration between undergraduate and postgraduate students and staff, and was submitted to Chemical Sensors where it was accepted for publication in February 2013.

Pillar[5]arenes are cyclic molecules first made by a Japanese group in 2008. This paper is the first to show how these compounds can be used in electrodes to detect sodium and potassium ions at clinically important concentrations, and it is also the first example of incorporating pillar[5]arenes in electrodes.

This collaborative effort highlights the success of the University of Brighton in attracting outstanding researchers, and also the valuable contributions that can be made by undergraduate students as researchers.

First author Lorraine Dube is in the final year of the BSc (Hons) Pharmaceutical and Chemical Sciences degree. The pillar[5]arene was synthesised and purified by Raghu Kothur, a first year postgraduate student recruited through the university's Doctoral Scholarship initiative. Raghu is supervised by Dr Peter Cragg, Dr Bhavik Patel, and microbiologist Dr Ian Cooper, while Dr Aidan Fagan-Murphy, a postdoctoral research associate directed by Dr Patel, oversaw the electrochemical work.