The Effect of SnO2 Mixture on a PVA-Based Thick Film Relative Humidity Sensor

Abstract

In this research, thick film technology has been used to design and fabricate relative humidity sensors with Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) as the sensing layer. The design was optimized to produce an ideal geometry according to the limitations of thick film technology. The sensor fabrication process used screen printing techniques on Alumina (Al2O3) substrate with Silver (Ag) as the electrode material. SnO2 was added to the PVA sensing layer with variations in the composition of 1:1 and 1:2. FTIR analysis showed that the addition of SnO2 did not affect the structure of the PVA, which indicated that there was no chemical reaction between PVA and SnO2. The deposition of the sensing layer was carried out using spin coating method, and the fabricated sensors were then tested by varying 5 humidity points inside a chamber with a hygrometer as a reference. Based on the test results, it was found that the sensors showed responses to humidity variation in the form of changes in resistance values. When the humidity in the chamber increased, the sensor resistance value decreased. The addition of SnO2 could reduce the relatively high resistance value of the PVA-based humidity sensor and also increase the sensor's time response to humidity variation. However, the humidity sensor’s sensitivity decreased for the higher composition of SnO2. With this technique, a simple yet stable humidity sensor could be fabricated using thick-film technology with a wide range of potential applications.