Development of microwave metamaterial-inspired sensors with multiple-band reactivity for mercury contamination detection

Abstract

Alternative contactless metamaterial-inspired microwave sensors, composed of a multi-band omnidirectional bowtie antenna and metamaterials, are developed to detect and identify mercury, one of the most widespread toxic heavy metals, in the C-band and S-band, using reflection coefficients. A multi-negative refractive index band metamaterial is specifically designed as a sensing enhancer, where the multi bands can effectively trigger the electromagnetic properties, as well as enhance the differentiation between the mercury samples. The geometry of the metamaterial and its arrangement and orientation are optimized to reach the system highest sensitivity. The proposed sensors were tested on mercury traces of various volumes and weights. Our study has shown that the electromagnetic responses of the mercury in the microwave range are nonlinear, yet predictable. Six distinguishable resonances generated while testing the samples specify the capability of identifying the mercury amount, which can effectively trace mercury contamination in water and seawater.

KEYWORDS:

• Electromagnetic
• metamaterials
• mercury
• microwave
• sensors
• contamination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by NSF ADVANCE Grant (1209210) at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. KMZH is a Presidential Graduate Research Assistant (PGRA) student at UTRGV.