A Smart System to Detect Volatile Organic Compounds Produced by Hydrocarbons on Seawater

摘要

In this work, a smart system for the detection of volatile organic compounds produced by the presence of hydrocarbons on the sea surface was described. The system gave satisfying results in terms of correct discrimination between odorous compounds and could probably form the basis for future low-cost systems capable to detect the presence of VOCs for environmental but also for biomedical purposes. Future research should probably deal with the increase of the sensor system performances, in order to allow the realization of a portable system able to better discriminate between different substances. Moreover, it could be useful to increase the reliability of the sensors' signal in particular environments, such as places with high humidity ratio, being the output signal span not negligible when relative humidity (RH) is over 70 %. This fact could represent a limitation for the employment of such sensors in marine environment and/or very humid places, but it was overtaken in this work with the employment of a humidity sensor activating pumps and valves for humidity expulsion.