Patent ID: 8178354

Claim:
Method of detecting the presence of at least one nitro compound in a medium, which comprises: contacting said medium with a chemical sensor comprising a sensitive material having at least one physical property which is modified on contact with the nitro compound, wherein said sensitive material comprises at least one polymer comprising at least one repeat unit selected from the group consisting of formulas (I-A-a), (I-A-b), (I-A-c), (I-B-a), (I-B-b) and (I-B-c) below: in which: R 5 , R 6 , R 7 , R 8 , R 9 , R 10 , R 11 , R 12 , R 13 , R 14 , R 15 and R 16 represent, independently of one another: a hydrogen or halogen atom; a saturated or unsaturated, linear, branched or cyclic, hydrocarbon group comprising from 1 to 100 carbon atoms, which hydrocarbon group can comprise one or more heteroatoms and/or one or more chemical functional groups comprising at least one heteroatom, and can be a substituted or unsubstituted aromatic or heteroaromatic group or can comprise one or more substituted or unsubstituted aromatic or heteroaromatic groups; or a chemical functional group comprising at least one heteroatom; said sensor providing a first response when the nitro compound is not present in the medium and providing a second response when the nitro compound is present in the medium, said second response being different from the first response and corresponding to a modification of the physical property of the sensitive material upon exposure to the nitro compound; measuring a change in the response of the sensor and correlating the change of response to the presence of the nitro compound in the medium.