Quartz Crystal Microbalance Coated with a Polyvinylpyrrolidone Microfiber Active Layer as a High-Performance Acetic...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Chemical Sensing
• Environmental Monitoring

Background:

• Acetic acid is a common airborne contaminant causing health issues.
• Industrial use of acetic acid necessitates real-time, high-performance detection devices.
• Existing detection methods may lack sensitivity or real-time capabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel acetic acid gas sensor with high sensitivity and selectivity.
• To utilize polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) microfiber as the active layer in a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor.
• To evaluate the sensor's performance, including sensitivity, detection limit, response/recovery times, stability, and selectivity.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of PVP microfiber using electrospinning.
• Characterization of microfiber morphology and composition using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy.
• Testing the sensor's response to acetic acid gas, assessing sensitivity, limit of detection, response/recovery times, and selectivity against other analytes.

Main Results:

• The PVP microfiber-based QCM sensor demonstrated high sensitivity ((4.144 ± 0.039) Hz·ppm^-1).
• The sensor exhibited a low detection limit and rapid response (75 s) and recovery (66 s) times.
• Excellent selectivity towards acetic acid was observed, along with good repeatability and long-term stability.

Conclusions:

• The developed PVP microfiber sensor effectively enhances sensitivity and provides mechanism selectivity for acetic acid detection.
• The sensor shows promise for real-time monitoring of airborne acetic acid.
• Further research is needed to improve sensor reversibility for practical environmental applications.