Printing Technologies as an Emerging Approach in Gas Sensors: Survey of Literature

Abstract

Herein, we review printing technologies which are commonly approbated at recent time in the course of fabricating gas sensors and multisensor arrays, mainly of chemiresistive type. The most important characteristics of the receptor materials, which need to be addressed in order to achieve a high efficiency of chemisensor devices, are considered. The printing technologies are comparatively analyzed with regard to, (i) the rheological properties of the employed inks representing both reagent solutions or organometallic precursors and disperse systems, (ii) the printing speed and resolution, and (iii) the thickness of the formed coatings to highlight benefits and drawbacks of the methods. Particular attention is given to protocols suitable for manufacturing single miniature devices with unique characteristics under a large-scale production of gas sensors where the receptor materials could be rather quickly tuned to modify their geometry and morphology. We address the most convenient approaches to the rapid printing single-crystal multisensor arrays at lab-on-chip paradigm with sufficiently high resolution, employing receptor layers with various chemical composition which could replace in nearest future the single-sensor units for advancing a selectivity.

Paper-Based Humidity Sensors as Promising Flexible Devices: State of the Art: Part 1. General Consideration

“…As for the description of patterning technologies listed in Table 6 and suitable for the manufacture of PB humidity sensors, they are described in detail in many review articles [ 25 , 75 , 144 , 269 ], and therefore will not be considered in this review.…”

“…As with conventional substrates, a variety of methods can be used to fabricate paper-based electrodes [ 280 ]. For example, various printing technologies can be used [ 212 , 269 , 281 ] and magnetron sputtering [ 282 ]. In particular, Nee et al [ 147 ] and Dungchai et al [ 283 ] used screen-printed electrodes on paper for electrochemical analysis.…”

Characterization of the Response of Magnetron Sputtered In2O3−x Sensors to NO2

“…Moreover, compared with other thick film traditional deposition processes, such as spin coating or drop casting and screen or ink jet printing [ 14 ], thin films obtained by magnetron sputtering methods are characterized by a much higher binding force and reproducibility [ 15 , 16 , 17 ], very good stability and they are suitable for the integration in miniaturized, low-power sensing devices based, for instance, on micro hot plates [ 18 ].…”

Microextrusion Printing of Hierarchically Structured Thick V2O5 Film with Independent from Humidity Sensing Response to Benzene

“…These things considered, all the above-mentioned approaches possess drawbacks upon deposition of films with areas of different composition or properties, which can be necessary for the preparation of sensitive gas sensors of “electronic olfaction” unit type [ 37 ] or multicolor electrochromic displays: in order to obtain such films by using the enumerated techniques, masking a part of the surface is required, which constitutes an additional step that makes the deposition process more complicated and potentially influences the properties of already deposited oxides. Printing technologies, such as pen plotter [ 38 , 39 ], ink-jet [ 40 , 41 , 42 ], microplotter [ 37 ], and aerosol [ 43 ], allow avoiding this drawback while possessing simplicity and potential for combination with various synthesis approaches, such as sol-gel technology [ 37 , 41 ], hydrothermal synthesis [ 44 , 45 ], etc. In addition to the already mentioned printing techniques, there is a number of others, among which we dedicate special attention to microextrusion printing [ 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 ].…”