Abstract: The development of electronic noses has been an active area of research in recent years. Human sense of smell is subjective, has poor reproducibility due to such factors as fatigue and prior odors analyzed, and should not be used to detect potentially toxic chemicals. Electronic noses do not have these restrictions and offer the potential to produce reliable measurements. Electronic noses have numerous applications such as identifying toxic vapors or explosive chemicals in a warfare or factory environment, sniffing for illicit drugs, and determining food quality control and spoilage. One such electronic nose is a quartz crystal microbalance, in which a coating on a quartz crystal surface selectively interacts with vapors of interest, resulting in a change in oscillation frequency of the quartz crystal. One major category of chemical compound vapors is that they can be either polar or non-polar. In this study, we construct a quartz crystal with a nanocomposite coating that aids in determining if a vapor source is from a polar or non-polar chemical source.
Keywords: Quartz crystal microbalance, Indium tin oxide, Nafion, Nanocomposites, Electronic nose
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