Liquid crystal core polymer fiber mat electronic gas sensors
Deña M. Agra-Kooijman, Christina Robb, Yu Guan, Antal Jákli, John L. West
Abstract
Electrospun liquid crystal fibres are promising media for gas sensing. However, accurately quantifying their response has been a challenge and until now limited to optical changes which utilise lasers and bulky detectors hindering the use for wear-able sensors. Herein, we make use of the resistive changes of the liquid crystal core polymer fibre mats (LCC-PFM) when exposed to volatile organic compounds (VOC). We found that these LCC-PFMs show reversible sensing of acetone at room temperature with response (recovery) times of ~14 (21) seconds and sensitivity as low as 10 ppm. This is comparable to the currently used metal-oxide-based sensors which typically operate at temperatures above 200 °C. These fibre mats are flexible, lightweight and in principle, can be easily miniaturised for use as resistive sensors to as small as 10 μm linear dimensions.