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Updated: Sep 20, 2025

Design and Characterization Methodology for Efficient Wide Range Tunable MEMS Filters
Published on: February 4, 2018
Detection of Volatile Organic Compounds by Using MEMS Sensors
Mohamed Arabi1, Majed Alghamdi2, Khalid Kabel3
1Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada.
Abstract:
We report on the deployment of MEMS static bifurcation (DC) sensors for the detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs): hydrogen sulfide and formaldehyde. We demonstrate a sensor that can detect as low as a few ppm of hydrogen sulfide. We also demonstrate a sensor array that can selectively detect formaldehyde in the presence of benzene, a closely related interferent. Toward that end, we investigate the sensitivity and selectivity of two detector polymers-polyaniline (PANI) and poly (2,5-dimethyl aniline) (P25DMA)-to both gases. A semiautomatic method is developed to functionalize individual sensors and sensor arrays with the detector polymers. We found that the sensor array can selectively sense 1 ppm of formaldehyde in the presence of benzene.
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