Sustainable and flexible polypyrrole/CNT/Nepali paper vapour sensor via sequential infiltration-polymerization process

A facile and low-cost approach was used to fabricate electrically conductive polymer hybrids by incorporating polypyrrole (PPy) and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into traditional Nepali handmade Argeli paper (TNP). The hybrids were fabricated through sequential infiltration of CNTs followed by in situ chemical oxidative polymerization of pyrrole. This method allowed a highly controlled incorporation of the functional materials into the TNP. The fabricated sample PPyC 5 /TNP demonstrated a response of approximately 457% towards ammonia in humid headspace from 0.58 M aqueous ammonia solution at 24 ℃ during a long exposure cycle of 360 s. This performance was enabled by the hierarchical architecture combining a stable electronic percolation network of CNTs, the chemical sensitivity of PPy and the structural porosity of thin TNP, which cumulatively provided reproducible ammonia detection with high selectivity in humid environments. These flexible TNP-based sustainable and eco-friendly hybrids could be an alternative approach for vapour sensing in the real-world environment.