An Electronic Nose Prototype for the On-Field Detection of Nerve Agents

Abstract

This paper presents a cost effective electronic nose prototype for the detection of 1.6 ppm of dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) in a complex background. The device comprises of seven cross-sensitive carbon nanotube mat (CNT-mat) type sensors, an impedance measurement circuit and a microcomputer for data pre-treatment and classification stages. This study focused on the detection of DMMP in a gas mixture, using the responses of the sensors before they reach a stable and repeatable behavior. Even with this major constraint, the support vector machine used for classification reached 98% precision for the recognition of the samples.

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

“…The promise of "volatolomics" [1,2] is to detect at their very early stages of development different types of cancer [3][4][5][6][7][8][9], tuberculosis [10,11] liver failure [12], kidney failure [13], Parkinson's disease [14], and many others [15][16][17][18][19]. The spheres of application of VOC sensing beyond medicine are food degradation monitoring [20][21][22], environment monitoring, i.e., the indication of hazardous chemical leakage, the monitoring of organic solvent vapour concentration in the air [23][24][25][26], space exploration, and homeland security [27][28][29][30], process control of chemical and food production [31], the monitoring of quality and alcohol content in automotive fuel [32,33] and others [34]. Nanomaterials belonging to fullerene family are already proved to act as a well-recognized component for elaboration of VOC sensors.…”

Multifunctional Carbon Nanotubes Enhanced Structural Composites with Improved Toughness and Damage Monitoring

“…Quite early after their popularization by Iijma [1] in 1991, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have raised hopes to improve polymers properties through the development of nanocomposites, due to their exceptional intrinsic properties [2][3][4]. In fact, the development of CNT nanocomposites has led to many applications in mechanics [5][6][7][8], electro-magnetic interference shielding [9], adhesion [10], detection [11][12][13], biomimetics [14], wearable [15], photonics [16], medicine [17], food [18] or energetics [19][20][21]. Nanocomposites can also be used to design smart materials [22][23][24][25][26], provided that a special attention is paid to the dispersion of nanofillers in the polymer matrix, and to their further structuring into stable conductive networks.…”