A MULTI WALLED CARBON NANOTUBES (MWCNTS) BASED GAS/VAPOR SENSOR SYSTEM,AND A PROCESS FOR THE PREPARATION THEREOF

摘要

The present invention relates to a process for depositing thin films of carbon nanotubes and their functionalization. More particularly, the present invention provides a process for depositing self-assembled thin films of multi-walled carbon nanotubes by using electrostatic charging technique. The testing of these films has been performed for detection of alcohol and chemical/gas vapours with high sensitivity and high reproducibility. The detections are based on the changes in conductance of the sensors. These developed sensors showed recovery in less than two minutes for alcohol vapours, few hours for ammonia vapours, and a day for nitrogen dioxide vapours. The corona based electrostatic self-assembly (CESA) pattering technique for batch fabrication of the sensors is fast, simple, low-cost and does not require much specialized equipment, and offers many technical advantages such as the capability to deposit on almost any substrate, including plastics, irregularly-shaped and (or) very large substrates, can be performed at room temperature, and self-functionalized for specific molecule detection. All these characteristics make the CESA-CNTs alcohol sensors very appealing for commercial applications.