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Updated: Jan 13, 2026

Computation of Atmospheric Concentrations of Molecular Clusters from ab initio Thermochemistry
Published on: April 8, 2020
Dynamic Water Bonding on Clusters Enables Ultrafast Humidity Response and Recovery
Lei Qu1, Chuanyu Guo1, Xiaojun Zhang1
1Key Laboratory of Functional Inorganic Material Chemistry, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Materials, Heilongjiang University, 74 Xuefu Road, Harbin, 150080, P.R. China.
Abstract:
Fast response and recovery are crucial for real-time human-body related (HBR) humidity monitoring, which faces a formidable challenge, due to the opposite requirements on interaction intensities of sensing materials with water. Herein, we demonstrate the first cluster-based humidity sensor with PhQPCu3I3 featuring a semi-exposed Cu3I3 crown. Compared to ligand encapsulated Cu4I4 clusters, low coordination, short distance and same orientation of iodine atoms in PhQPCu3I3 lead to a rapid and reversible "H2O + I…I" reaction. Consequently, besides more than doubled sensitivity of 106 and halved hysteresis error of 3.2% in related humidity range of 11%-97%, PhQPCu3I3 endows its devices with ultrashort response and recovery time of 0.54 and 0.45 s comparable to human reaction time (0.5 s). Owing to its record-low comprehensive reaction time within 1.0 s, PhQPCu3I3 based sensors were used for real-time respiratory rate monitoring and non-contact information input. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of "dynamic synergistic bonding" in combining rapid water adsorption and desorption and superiority of cluster sensors in real-time HBR applications.
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