Disposable, Paper-Based, Inkjet-Printed Humidity and H₂S Gas Sensor for Passive Sensing Applications

An inkjet-printed, fully passive sensor capable of either humidity or gas sensing is presented herein. The sensor is composed of an interdigitated electrode, a customized printable gas sensitive ink and a specialized dipole antenna for wireless sensing. The interdigitated electrode printed on a paper substrate provides the base conductivity that varies during the sensing process. Aided by the porous nature of the substrate, a change in relative humidity from 18% to 88% decreases the electrode resistance from a few Mega-ohms to the kilo-ohm range. For gas sensing, an additional copper acetate-based customized ink is printed on top of the electrode, which, upon reaction with hydrogen sulphide gas (H₂S) changes, both the optical and the electrical properties of the electrode. A fast response time of 3 min is achieved at room temperature for a H₂S concentration of 10 ppm at a relative humidity (RH) of 45%. The passive wireless sensing is enabled through an antenna in which the inner loop takes care of conductivity changes in the 4-5 GHz band, whereas the outer-dipole arm is used for chipless identification in the 2-3 GHz band.