Design and Development of Nanostructured Thin Film based Liquefied Petroleum Gas Sensor for MEMS Electronic Nose Applications

Abstract

Monitoring air quality has become significant due to the increasing tendency of pollutants newlinereleased in our surroundings, which affects the ecosystem. To prevent the adverse effects of newlinethe toxic gases in the atmosphere, various types of sensors have been developed such as metal newlineoxide sensors, polymer-based sensors, acoustic wave sensors, and electrochemical sensors, newlineetc. Metal oxide sensors are preferred over others due to their ease of fabrication, simple newlinehandling, small dimension, and cost-effectiveness. These sensors are based on the newlineconductometric phenomenon in which electrical conductivity varies due to interaction with newlinethe surface molecules of the sensors with the gases surrounding them. Nano-scaled metal newlineoxide gas sensors possess high sensitivity and responses against the targeted gases. In the newlinepresent study, an effort was made to improve the quality of existing metal oxide-based gas newlinesensors with enhanced sensitivity and performance. Zinc oxide (ZnO) is an extensively newlineexplored material with a variety of potential applications in the field of photonics, electronics, newlinecosmetics, medicine, transparent conductive paste, solar cells, etc. newline