Nanocomposites Chemical Sensors

A special issue of Chemosensors (ISSN 2227-9040). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials for Chemical Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2021) | Viewed by 7639

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Smart Plastics Group, IRDL CNRS 6027, University of South Brittany (UBS), Lorient, France
Interests: polymer nanocomposites sensors; smart Materials; human and materials’ health monitoring; damage and desease detection; e-noses; nanoassembly layer by layer
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The important potential of Nanocomposites Chemical sensors was revealed in the first studies on artificial olfaction. Initially developed by mimicking the way mammals can analyze odors by combining and analyzing the signals of thousands of non-specific chemical receptors present in their nostrils, chemosensor arrays (e-noses) have seen their design regularly improved by integrating successive innovations from transducers (selectivity, sensitivity, discrimination) and from data treatment (classification, learning, recognition algorithms).

Nanocomposites transducers provide a versatile brick by which to tailor both selectivity and sensitivity using a tool box composed of a variety of nanofillers (nanotubes, nanofoils, nanowires) and polymers (insulating, conducting, graftable, excluder, spacer) that can be incorporated in infinite combinations resulting in infinite possibilities. However, there are still important issues associated with this technology before it becomes optimal for field use, in particular,  related to:

  • the detection of ever lower vapor molecule numbers (sub-ppm, ppb range);
  • the durability of transducers with robust architectures (saturation, ageing);
  • contamination with pollutants (competition of adsorption on selective sites, combinations of molecules); and
  • the determination and evolution of background.

The purpose of this Special Issue on Nanocomposites Chemical sensors is to put the light on:

  • new and robust nanofabrication techniques of transducers (printing, spraying, spin coatings, self-assembly, layer by layer manufacturing, casting);
  • new nanocomposite formulations able to interact specifically with species of interest such as biomarkers, toxic molecules, for instance, to achieve anticipated diagnosis;
  • new protocols to understand the fundamental chemoresistive behavior of nanocomposites (diffusion, confinement, size effect, tunneling);
  • new sensing devices able to amplify the signals of transducers (filters, concentrators, electrodes).

Any original and authentic contributions to the field will be considered. We also look forward to receiving papers on the latest creative research.

Prof. Dr. Jean-Francois Feller

Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • chemical sensing
  • resistive transducers
  • polymer nanocomposites
  • conductive nanoarchitecture
  • additive layer by layer manufacturing
  • printing
  • spraying
  • formulation nanocomposites
  • functional nanocarbons
  • hybrid fillers
  • quantum tunneling effect
  • self-assembly
  • grafting
  • biomarkers
  • toxic molecules

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 3275 KiB  
Article
Boosting Selectivity and Sensitivity to Biomarkers of Quantum Resistive Vapour Sensors Used for Volatolomics with Nanoarchitectured Carbon Nanotubes or Graphene Platelets Connected by Fullerene Junctions
by Sananda Nag, Mickaël Castro, Veena Choudhary and Jean-Francois Feller
Chemosensors 2021, 9(4), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/chemosensors9040066 - 28 Mar 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3448
Abstract
Nanocarbon-based vapour sensors are increasingly used to make anticipated diagnosis of diseases by the analysis of volatile organic compound (VOC) biomarkers from the breath, i.e., volatolomics. However, given the tiny number of molecules to detect, usually only tens of parts per billion (ppb), [...] Read more.
Nanocarbon-based vapour sensors are increasingly used to make anticipated diagnosis of diseases by the analysis of volatile organic compound (VOC) biomarkers from the breath, i.e., volatolomics. However, given the tiny number of molecules to detect, usually only tens of parts per billion (ppb), increasing the sensitivity of polymer nanocomposite chemoresistive transducers is still a challenge. As the ability of these nanosensors to convert the interactions with chemical compounds into changes of resistance, depends on the variations of electronic transport through the percolated network of the conducting nanofillers, it is a key parameter to control. Actually, in this conducting architecture, the bottlenecks for electrons’ circulation are the interparticular junctions giving either ohmic conduction in the case of close contacts or quantum tunnelling when jumps though gaps are necessary. This in turn depends on a number of nanometric parameters such as the size and geometry of the nanofillers (spherical, cylindrical, lamellar), the method of structuring of the conductive architecture in the sensory system, etc. The present study focuses on the control of the interparticular junctions in quantum-resistive vapour sensors (vQRS) by nanoassembling pristine CNT or graphene covalently or noncovalently functionalized with spherical Buckminster fullerene (C60) into a percolated network with a hybrid structure. It is found that this strategy allows us to significantly boost, both selectivity and sensitivity of pristine CNT or graphene-based transducers exposed to a set of seven biomarkers, ethanol, methanol, acetone, chloroform, benzene, toluene, cyclohexane and water. This is assumed to result from the spherical fullerene acting on the electronic transport properties at the nanojunctions between the CNT or graphene nanofillers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanocomposites Chemical Sensors)
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10 pages, 2171 KiB  
Article
Novel 1D/2D KWO/Ti3C2Tx Nanocomposite-Based Acetone Sensor for Diabetes Prevention and Monitoring
by Obinna Ama, Mahek Sadiq, Michael Johnson, Qifeng Zhang and Danling Wang
Chemosensors 2020, 8(4), 102; https://doi.org/10.3390/chemosensors8040102 - 16 Oct 2020
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 3577
Abstract
The acetone content in the exhaled breath of individuals as a biomarker of diabetes has become widely studied as a non-invasive means of quantifying blood glucose levels. This calls for development of sensors for the quantitative analysis of trace concentration of acetone, which [...] Read more.
The acetone content in the exhaled breath of individuals as a biomarker of diabetes has become widely studied as a non-invasive means of quantifying blood glucose levels. This calls for development of sensors for the quantitative analysis of trace concentration of acetone, which is presents in the human exhaled breath. Traditional gas detection systems, such as the Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry and several types of chemiresistive sensors are currently being used for this purpose. However, these systems are known to have limitations of size, cost, response time, operating conditions, and consistent accuracy. An ideal breath acetone sensor should provide solutions to overcome the above limitations and provide good stability and reliability. It should be a simple and portable detection system of good sensitivity, selectivity that is low in terms of both cost and power consumption. To achieve this goal, in this paper, we report a new sensing nanomaterial made by nanocomposite, 1D KWO (K2W7O22) nanorods/2D Ti3C2Tx nanosheets, as the key component to design an acetone sensor. The preliminary result exhibits that the new nanocomposite has an improved response to acetone, with 10 times higher sensitivity comparing to KWO-based sensor, much better tolerance of humidity interference and enhanced stability for multiple months. By comparing with other nanomaterials: Ti3C2, KWO, and KWO/Ti3C2Tx nanocomposites with variable ratio of KWO and Ti3C2Tx from 1:1, 1:2, 1:5, 2:1, 4:1, and 9:1, the initial results confirm the potential of the novel KWO/Ti3C2 (2:1) nanocomposite to be an excellent sensing material for application in sensitive and selective detection of breath acetone for diabetics health care and prevention. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanocomposites Chemical Sensors)
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