Fabrication of Polyaniline-Based Gas Sensors Using Piezoelectric Inkjet and Screen Printing for the Detection of Hydrogen Sulfide

This work describes a fully printable polyaniline-copper (II) chloride sensor for the detection of hydrogen sulfide gas. The sensing device is composed of screen printed silver interdigitated electrode (IDE) on a flexible PET substrate with inkjet printed layers of polyaniline and copper (II) chloride. The sensor is employed as a chemiresistor with changes in measured current being correlated with concentration. On exposure to hydrogen sulfide, 2.5 ppmv (parts per million by volume) is clearly detectable with a linear relationship between measured current and concentration over the 10-100 ppmv region. The detection mechanism is discussed with respect to the hydrogen sulfide response, the choice of electrode materials in addition to UV-vis and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) characterization.