DEVELOPMENT OF SELECTIVELY INTERACTING SOFT MATERIALS FOR GAS SENSOR APPLICATIONS

Indoor air quality has decreased in many existing building infrastructures due to poor ventilation and an increase in synthetic chemicals and bioeffluents in these interior locations. Poor air quality has been linked to deleterious health effects, and thus, monitoring the presence of these compounds in these interior environments is of increasing importance with respect to public health. As such, there is a critical need for next-generation low-cost, selective, and sensitive indoor gas sensors. Current gas detection systems require multicomponent, complex and cumbersome devices or require high power input to achieve detection at meaningful concentrations. Here, we detail the efforts on the incorporation of different surface chemistries onto microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) resonant mass gas sensors to monitor a variety of gas analytes. These analytes span from benzene, toluene, xylene (BTX), carbon dioxide (CO2), and formaldehyde. These soft surface chemistries, ranging from graphene to polymer to nanocomposite materials, when incorporated onto mass sensors allow for selective and sensitive real time monitoring while remaining processable, low-cost, low-power, and small-scale.