Highly Sensitive, Printable Nanostructured Conductive Polymer Wireless Sensor for Food Spoilage Detection

Near-field communication (NFC) labeling technology has been recently used to endow smartphones with nonline-of-sight sensing functions to improve the environment, human health, and quality of life. For applications in detecting food spoilage, the development of a sensor with high enough sensitivity to act as a switch for an NFC tag remains a challenge. In this Letter, we developed a nanostructured conductive polymer-based gas sensor with high sensitivity of Δ R/ R₀ = 225% toward 5 ppm ammonia NH₃ and unprecedented sensitivities of 46% and 17% toward 5 ppm putrescine and cadaverine, respectively. The gas sensor plays a critical role as a sensitive switch in the circuit of the NFC tag and enables a smartphone to readout meat spoilage when the concentration of biogenic amines is over a preset threshold. We envision the broad potential use of such intelligent sensing for food status monitoring applications in daily life, storage and supply chains.