Effect of physicochemical properties of analyte on the selectivity of polymethylmethacrylate: Carbon nanotube based composite sensor for detection of volatile organic compounds

We report for the first time, the effect of physicochemical properties of analyte on the selectivity of the polymethylmethacrylate: functionalized Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (PMMA: f-MWCNTs) composite sensor. In the present work, we have developed an optimized composite sensor and its selectivity was studied in detail. The sensor was exposed to various organic vapors and their response, response time and recovery time were recorded. It was found that the selectivity is jointly governed by the electronic and structural properties of both the species i.e. the sensing material and the vapor molecule. Also the discrimination towards different organic vapors strongly depends on the adsorption and chemical properties of the analyte. The sensor was observed to be highly selective for methanol vapor owing to its smallest molecular size and highest electronegativity.