Abstract. The possibility of application for carbon nanotubes DEALTOM as a conductive filler for composite sensors based on polysiloxanes is shown. Sensors show predicted results on sensitivity and selectivity. Nanotubes according to chemical, physical and mechanical characteristics are suitable for modifying of specified composites and are applicable for work with rather aggressive reagents.
IntroductionCombination of nano-and biotechnologies, computer, information and cognitive technologies in a single chain enables the emergence of new scientific trends on creation of inanimate matter intellectual systems, which can be used in a wide number of areas from industrial production to ecology and medicine. One of a recent trends is a chemical analysis with the use of multi-touch gas-analysis systems called «electronic nose» [1,2]. The basis of these systems is an array of sensors characterized by the sensitivity to a broad range or the whole class of analyzed substances (analytes).Nowadays a wide range of various sensors can be used in sensor arrays, but chemoresistors based on composites with the application of nanotubes are of special interest. Carbon nanotubes have a number of unique properties making their usage in chemical sensors very prospective. A large surface area of nanotubes provides efficient adsorption of molecules in many substances, and modification of carbon nanotubes surface by polymers can increase both selectivity, and sensitivity of sensors [3].Nanocomposite materials can also provide important advantages for sensors: the possibility of sensitivity control by alteration of a quantitative relationship and the nature of filler and polymer interaction, little response time owing to a fast diffusion of analyte molecules into the volume of a film and the expansion in a variety of sensitive layers [4].The purpose of this work is to examine gas sensitivity in a hybrid sensor array comprising polymeric composite sensors based on three variously modified polysiloxanes with electroconductive filler in the form of carbon black and DEALTOM nanotubes.