Fabrication of Ethanol Sensor Based on a Calixarene Derivative Coated Piezoelectric Quartz Crystal

Abstract

Coating with a calixarene derivative on gold surface of AT-cut quartz crystal, a piezoelectric quartz crystal (PQC) sensing device was successfully fabricated in this paper. Among four calixarene materials, the compound of MRCT was the most efficient actively coating material for recognizing ethanol molecule based on a host-guest recognition mechanism with C—H•••π interaction. In comparison with gas-chromatography (GC) method, the calixarene based PQC device can be well used for on-line detection of the ethanol vapor in the range of 0 ~ 3000 ppm around our environment with a recovery of 92.33~105.76 %. The detection limit can be evaluated to be 3.53 ppm. Furthermore, the proposed TSM sensor possessed good selectivity, reproducibility, reversibility and high stability for practical purpose.