Liquid crystal core polymer fiber mat electronic gas sensors

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.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Liquid crystals
• gas sensor
• flexible sensors
• resistive sensors
• electrospinning

Author contributions

DAK designed the experiments, DAK, CR and YG collected data, AJ interpreted results, DAK, JLW and AJ analyzed results and wrote the paper.

Disclosure statement

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

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by Kent State University.