Design of the novel polyaniline/polysiloxane flexible nanocomposite film and its application in gas sensor

Abstract

Gas sensors for the detection of toxic gases have attracted extensive attention due to the growing environment issue. Polysiloxane is an ideal substrate material for the flexible electronic devices. In this work, dual-activity siloxane monomer with double bonds and epoxy groups (MAGETDS) was synthesized via hydrosilylation reaction. A series of flexible polysiloxane substrate were then prepared based on the dual-activity siloxane via UV-thermal induced polymerization reaction. Besides, the regulating of reactive monomers endows the flexible polysiloxane with tunable properties. Then, polyaniline (PANI) was synthesized via a facile in-situ chemical oxidation polymerization technique and directly loaded on the polysiloxane substrate to fabricate a polyaniline/polysiloxane flexible nanocomposite film as a novel room temperature NH3 sensor. This novel NH3 sensors exhibited good selectivity, reproducibility and a low detection limit of 5 ppm towards NH3 at room temperature. The strategy we developed may provide a promising approach in flexible electronics for room temperature gas sensing application.