S. Navale, A. Mane, G. Khuspe
Sep 1, 2014
Citations
1
Influential Citations
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Quality indicators
Journal
Synthetic Metals
Abstract
Abstract Chemical oxidation polymerization technique was employed for the formation of polythiophene. Gas sensors based on polythiophene were prepared on glass substrates using spin coating technique. Structure and morphology of polythiophene have been characterized using FTIR and FESEM techniques. The surface topography and roughness of the surface have been investigated using AFM technique. Room temperature gas sensing performance of the polythiophene films have been studied for various reducing (H 2 S, NH 3 , CH 3 OH and C 2 H 5 OH) as well as oxidizing (NO 2 and Cl 2 ) gases. We demonstrate that, the polythiophene films are highly selective towards NO 2 gas at room temperature with high sensitivity, good selectivity and excellent repeatability. The sensor response was estimated by the change in the electrical resistance of the film in the presence and absence of NO 2 gas. Furthermore, the polythiophene sensor is able to detect up to 10 ppm of NO 2 gas with reasonable sensitivity and it can be reliably used to monitor the concentration of NO 2 over the range 10–100 ppm. Plausible sensing mechanism of polythiophene sensor towards NO 2 gas is also discussed. Our reproducible experimental results clearly demonstrate that, polythiophene sensor have a great potential for NO 2 sensing applications at room temperature operations.