TECHNOLOGY OF CHEMICAL RECOGNITION WITH THE SENSOR ARRAYS: FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS AND TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION

Abstract

In this work fundamental problems and technical implementations of sensor arrays for chemical images recognition are studied. In our opinion the main fundamental problem at the moment is the absence of an adequate physical-chemical model of interaction of the analyte molecule with sensitive layer which does not allow to predict, at least preliminary, reaction of sensor to a contact with complex mixture of different molecules in different concentrations. Another fundamental problem limiting applicability of the electronic nose devices is lack of reproducibility of responses of the same sensors array to the same analyte. Three types of multisensor systems developed at ISP NASU are considered, namely the quartz crystal microbalance array, conductive polymers and the sensors based on optical principle. The results obtained during the operation of the three systems are shown, taking into account some of the mentioned fundamental and empirical regularities in the multisensor arrays.