A NOVEL ROUTE FOR THE FORMATION OF GAS SENSORS

Abstract

The rapid development of conductive polymers shows great potential in temperature chemical gas detection as their electrical conductivity is often changed upon spotlight to oxidative or reductive gas molecules at room temperature. However, the relatively low conductivity and high affinity toward volatile organic compounds and water molecules always exhibit low sensitivity, poor stability and gas selectivity, which hinder their practical gas sensor applications. In addition, inorganic sensitive materials show totally different advantages in gas sensors like high sensitivity, fast response to low concentration analytes, high area and versatile surface chemistry, which could harmonize the conducting polymers in terms of the sensing individuality. It seems to be a good option to combine inorganic sensitive materials with polymers for gas detection for the synergistic effects which has attracted extensive interests in gas sensing applications. In this appraisal the recapitulation of recent development in polymer inorganic nanocomposites-based gas sensors. The roles of inorganic nanomaterials in improving the gas sensing performances of conducting polymers are introduced and therefore the progress of conducting polymer inorganic nanocomposites including metal oxides, metal, carbon (carbon nanotube, graphene) and ternary composites are obtainable. Finally, conclusion and perspective within the field of gas sensors incorporating conducting polymer inorganic nanocomposites are summarized. Keywords: Gas sensor, conducting polymer, polymer-inorganic nanocomposites; conducting organic polymers nanostructure, synergistic effect, polypyrrole (PPY), polyaniline (PANI).