Exploring the selectivity of WO3 with iridium catalyst in an ethanol/naphthalene mixture using multivariate statistics

The Ir/SiO2 is strongly influenced by changes in ethanol concentration, and is, thus, able to quantify ethanol in a range between 0 and 5 ppm with a precision of 500 ppb, independently of the naphthalene concentrations applied in this investigation. On the other hand, this sensitivity to ethanol reduces its selectivity towards naphthalene, whereas Ir/WO3/SiO2 shows an almost binary response to ethanol. Hence, the latter has a better selectivity towards naphthalene and can quantify legally relevant concentrations down to 5 ppb with a precision of 2.5 ppb, independently of a changing ethanol background between 0 and 5 ppm.