A miniaturized distillation system is presented for separating sulfurous acid (H(2)SO(3)) into sulfur dioxide (SO(2)) and water (H(2)O). The major components of the proposed system include a microfluidic distillation chip, a power control module, and a carrier gas pressure control module. The microfluidic chip is patterned using a commercial CO(2) laser and comprises a serpentine channel, a heating zone, a buffer zone, a cooling zone, and a collection tank. In the proposed device, the H(2)SO(3) solution is injected into the microfluidic chip and is separated into SO(2) and H(2)O via an appropriate control of the distillation time and temperature. The gaseous SO(2) is then transported into the collection chamber by the carrier gas and is mixed with DI water. Finally, the SO(2) concentration is deduced from the absorbance measurements obtained using a spectrophotometer. The experimental results show that a correlation coefficient of R(2) = 0.9981 and a distillation efficiency as high as 94.6% are obtained for H(2)SO(3) solutions with SO(2) concentrations in the range of 100-500 ppm. The SO(2) concentrations of two commercial red wines are successfully detected using the developed device. Overall, the results presented in this study show that the proposed system provides a compact and reliable tool for SO(2) concentration measurement purposes.

This work investigates the long-term behavior of photo thin-film transistors (TFTs) that are covered with color filters and based on hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) technology. Based on the electrical characteristics and the optical responses of these TFTs as measured under different stress conditions, a new method for driving a photo TFT with a negative gate-source voltage is proposed to suppress the degradation of the photocurrent. The effectiveness of the newly proposed method is verified using our previously developed white-light photocurrent gating (WPCG) structure, the measurement of photocurrents, and the established models of red, green, and blue photo TFTs. An accelerated lifetime test of the fabricated circuit was carried out at 70 • C and under the illumination of ambient light for 504 hours, demonstrating that the proposed method improves the long-term reliability of optical sensors.INDEX TERMS Hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin-film transistor, long-term reliability, optical sensor.