s-CNTs and CNTs/PANi - Based Selective Sensors for Detection and Measurement of Pollutants in Industrial Gas Emissions

摘要

Anthropogenic pollutants are a threat for ecosystem sustainability, especially in heavy industrialized countries. Issues raised by the massive air pollution led to development and implementation of specific methods and equipment for detecting, measuring and controlling pollution directly to the source. Combined actions of multiple pollutants resulted from industrial gas emissions are of particular concern, since they generate negative effects on environment quality and human health, even when low concentrations of each individual chemical are present, that considered separately are not effective. In this work, different types of microsensors, based on SWCNT, were developed and tested for the detection and measurement of classical pollutants resulted from industrial gas emissions, such as CO, NH_3, and CO_2. Drop casting method and electrochemical cycling have been applied in manufacturing the sensors, by directly deposition on interdigitated electrode gold structures of different active mixture like sulfonated carbon nanotubes (s-CNTs) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/Polyaniline (PANi) respectively. Our main objective was to investigate the behavior of the obtained microsensors at room-temperature. Characterized by high electrochemical activity and improved stability, the proposed sensors solutions could represent a viable solution in developing low-powered sensor-systems with innumerable practical applications application.