Geometry of the inkjet‐printed sensing layer for a better volatile organic compound sensor response

Abstract

Volatile organic compound (VOC) chemical sensors increasingly rely on the use of polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) as sensing materials, thanks to the simple processability of polymers combined with the conductivity properties of nanoparticles dispersed in an insulating polymer matrix. Recently, inkjet printing (IJP), the main advantage of which is its patterning capability, was proven to be a reliable technique for the deposition of these materials. In this work, PNC chemical sensors were fabricated by IJP of a polystyrene/carbon black based ink. The sensor responses were measured upon exposure to acetone vapors and analyzed as function of the sensitive material geometry. Among the different realized geometries, the lines transverse to the interdigitated electrodes fingers resulted in the optimal configuration for the sensing layer in a VOC chemical sensor.

Printed ZnO nanoparticle seed layers to grow ZnO nanowires on flexible substrates

“…Moreover, its main working conditions operating in no-contact, no-vacuum, and at low-temperatures make this technique versatile for the employable (nonflexible and flexible) substrates. These peculiarities of the IJP technique are exploited in several electronic applications [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] and here it is evaluated the possibility to extend them in the sectors like energy storage, energy harvesting to fabricate piezoelectric nanostructures.…”

Bubble-Patterned Films by Inkjet Printing and Gas Foaming

“…It consists of mask-and contact-free direct deposition and patterning, of sub-nL volumes of functional inks, onto different types of substrates, flexible or not. As a digital technology, it permits to design and fabricate different patterns (also with complex geometry) through suitable graphic software [30]. Moreover, since deposition and patterning are obtained in one step in a non-contact way, this technique allows to minimize contamination as well as reduce the waste amount and the consumption of expensive inks, with respect to other traditional deposition methods [28,29].…”

Study of the correlation between sensing performance and surface morphology of inkjet-printed aqueous graphene-based chemiresistors for NO2 detection

“…Indeed, IJP utilizes very minute amounts of materials, deposits selectively and patterns them at the same time under no-contact and no-vacuum conditions by means of digital masters realized by CAD software. This guarantees high precision and accuracy in the deposition process [ 9 – 10 ]. All these features make IJP completely versatile in terms of employable inks and substrates, the latter being either rigid or flexible.…”