Facile preparation of fullerenol-based humidity sensor with highly fast response

Abstract

As a typical representative of water-soluble fullerene derivatives, fullerenols have been widely used in biomedicine, adsorption, and sensor detection. This paper has studied the structure and composition of commercial fullerenols, which indicate abundant hydrophilic groups exist on the surface of carbon cages to promote the adsorption of water molecules. It is found that the humidity sensor coated with fullerenols has a fast response (19s)/recovery time (12s) and low hysteresis (ΔH ≈ 2.68%RH) at the relative humidity level of 11–97%. The change mechanism of the impedance signal is due to the ions’ formation caused by the adsorption of water molecules. Excellent repeatability and stability are still maintained after a long time of exposure in the air, which displays great application potential.

Keywords:

• Fullerenol
• carbon nanomaterials
• humidity sensor
• adsorption

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [No. LQ21E020005] and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 52002365, No.22201028].