Miniature Electronic Nose System Based on Polymer/carbon Black Films

Introduction The ability to monitor and detect various chemical gases is important to many applications. One example is environmental monitoring, such as determining the air quality inside a room or closed chamber and detecting the presence and concentration of toxic or otherwise dangerous gases that may come from spills and leaks [1]. Monitoring and determining the constituents of a sample gas or environment involves collecting samples and analyzing them in complex and expensive laboratory analytical instruments such as a gas chromatographmass spectrometer (GC-MS). [1] Although GC-MS systems work very well, many applications need sensor systems that are smaller, more portable, and cheaper that are capable of identifying contaminants at the part-per-million (ppm) level. We have constructed a miniature electronic nose system consisting of an array of polymer/carbon black sensors fabricated on a silicon chip and interfaced with analog amplifiers and a commercial chip to process and collect the signal responses.