Decoration of carbon nanotubes by chitosan in a nanohybrid conductive polymer composite for detection of polar vapours

Abstract

A new hybrid nanocomposite was designed by introducing decorated CNTs into a polymer for improving the sensitivity against polar vapours.

Nanostructured Materials for Room‐Temperature Gas Sensors

“…Previous studies have demonstrated that hybrid materials are highly suitable in sensing applications, showing enhanced sensor stability, sensitivity and selectivity. The inorganic phase can be diverse, ranging from metal oxides, metal nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes and graphene . Their incorporation into conducting polymers can increase the concentration of interacting sites with the analytes, improve the intra‐ and inter‐chain mobility of charge carriers in the polymer chains or even modify the affinity of the composite to the electron‐donor or ‐acceptor molecules .…”

“…In addition to metal oxides and metals, carbon nanostructures such as CNTs and graphene are also promising additives for conducting polymers to develop room‐temperature gas‐sensing materials. For example, Swager et al have shown that the CNTs/polythiophene hybrids are highly sensitive and selective to organic vapors.…”

“…Both experimental and theoretical studies have indicated that sensor sensitivity as well as the selectivity of CNT films could be enhanced by either creation of defect sites along the tube walls or surface functionalization with inorganic nanoparticles or organic molecules …”

UV-Enhanced Humidity Sensing of Chitosan–SnO2 Hybrid Nanowires

“…A direct comparison of response values cannot be fair for the performance evaluation since the reported studies applied different test procedures and defined response parameters with different methodologies. For example, in two of the studies, response values were fitted by using the Langmuir-Henry-Clustering (LHC) model to correlate gas sensing with properties of CNT-chitosan and polyvinly alcohol (PVA)-chitosan-CNT blended films [12,18]. Thus, they used nitrogen as a carrier gas during their measurements.…”

“…In addition to these, chitosan was used in more complex composites for gas sensing [16,17]. Molla-Abbasi and Ghaffarian suggested the use of chitosan-decorated carbon nanotube surfaces for polar chemical vapors [18]. They discovered improved humidity sensing abilities of chitosan@CNT heterostructures related with the chitosan surfaces.…”