Abstract
This paper presents the fabrication of novel flexible sensors from metalized polymer films and their subsequent utilization for environmental applications. Polyethylene terephthalate films coated with thin-film of aluminum was used as a singular material to form the sensor patches. Optimization was done on the laser parameters to form laser-inscribed interdigitated electrodes on the aluminum side of the polymer films. The sensors were then used to detect the presence of sulfate ions in the water samples. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used to detect the resistive and reactive changes with respect to the corresponding changes in the concentration of the tested solutions. Experiments were conducted using five different concentrations ranging between 0.1 ppm and 1000 ppm. The sensitivity, limit of detection and response time of the salts were 0.874 Ω/ppm, 0.1 ppm and one second, respectively. The repeatability of the sensors was also tested to validate their responses for the target analyte. An optimal frequency was chosen to form an IoT-based system that consisted of an impedance analyzer AD 5933, Wi-Fi embedded Arduino and 2:1 multiplexer ADG849. The interfacing of the microcontroller-sensed data was also done with the cloud server to showcase the potentiality of the developed systems as portable devices for real-time applications.
Highlights
The utilization of sensors for ubiquitous monitoring purposes has become commonplace over the last two decades [1, 2]
We have proposed a system which can record the sulfate data in any location and transfer them in real-time from a remote location
The design, fabrication, and implementation of IoT-based systems for environmental applications have been expressed in the paper
Summary
The utilization of sensors for ubiquitous monitoring purposes has become commonplace over the last two decades [1, 2]. Even though the silicon sensors were capable of performing ubiquitously, certain disadvantages, including the high cost of fabrication, the requirement of high input power, and non-linearity in their responses, led researchers to seek suitable alternatives [9, 10] Other disadvantages are their multi-step fabrication process that requires cleanroom facilities, generation of toxic fumes during the formation of the single-crystal sensors which cause health hazards and chronic diseases, a high signal-to-noise ratio at low frequencies, changes in their responses with respect to the change in ambient temperature, very low variation in response which might need the conditioning circuits to amplify the signal, and high power consumption [11, 12]. These flexible sensors had additional advantages of low-cost fabrication techniques, simple operating
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