Product Development
Polymer Materials Design and Characterization
Materials Characterization
Polymer Reaction Engineering
Growing demand for real-time, portable, wearable, and miniaturized gas sensors necessitates materials that balance sensitivity, selectivity, stability, and processability. Gas sensing materials are generally classified into inorganic (e.g., semiconductor metal oxides) and organic (e.g., polymers (often conducting polymers)) categories, each with inherent performance trade-offs. Semiconductor metal oxides offer enhanced sensitivity and low limits of detection (LOD), but are often hindered by high costs, elevated operating temperatures, baseline drift, short lifespans, and poor selectivity and stability. In contrast, organic materials like polymers and graphene, while offering lower sensitivity, provide benefits like flexibility and room-temperature operation. Hybrid materials, such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs), aim to integrate the strengths of both inorganic and organic materials but frequently struggle with low selectivity, stability, and processing challenges.
This study focuses on tuning and evaluation of polymer-based materials like polyaniline (PANI) (and its derivatives) for ambient temperature trace volatile organic compounds (VOCs) sensing. By systematically modifying the polymer backbone, adjusting polymer synthesis parameters, and incorporating metal oxides to create hybrid composites, the effects of structural changes on key sensing parameters are assessed. Resulting structure–property relationships provide critical insights to support the rational design of next-generation polymer-based gas sensing materials with improved VOCs detection capabilities.