Chemiresistor sensor matrix prepared by full-printing processes

Abstract

Herein, we report a novel full printing process for fabricating chemiresistor gas sensor matrixes on photographic paper with an inkjet printer. Sensor matrices, which can increase a number of sensors significantly compared to a serial sensor array, were printed on one piece of A4 photographic paper. Each sensor matrix contains 36 interdigital electrodes in an area of less than 11 mm², which greatly improves the density of the sensor. The basic architecture of the sensor matrix is electrodes that row and column intersecting. In order to insulate the row and column electrodes from meeting each other, an insulating layer needs to be fabricated at the point of intersection between the row and column electrodes. The insulation layer was produced by adjusting the number of printing passes and shape of the printing pattern of color pigment ink. Carbon black (CB) was used to form a chemosensitive composite by changing its resistivity with a specific polymer for the preparation of sensing material. In order to make the sensing material can be printed, it is necessary to disperse CB first. CB was dispersed in aqueous solution with sodium dodecyl sulfate added as a surfactant to lower the surface tension, which enabled printing of CB using an inkjet printer. Some polymers have certain adsorption characteristics for gases. According to the different gas properties, the adsorption characteristics are also different. By adding polyethylene glycol polymer to the CB layer, the response to four gases with different properties is improved. Compared with the drop coating, the full-printing sensors not only reduces the production time significantly, but also improves the gas response magnitude to ethanol by about three times. The results demonstrate that the developed sensor can be used as a low cost, disposable, and easily printable chemical sensor.