A polymer-Metglas sensor used to detect volatile organic compounds

In this work, the commercial polymer BAYHYDROL-110 has been employed as the analyte-responsive recognition layer on a magnetoelastic sensor used to detect several volatile organic compounds. The sensor exhibits enhanced selectivity to o-xylene and p-xylene compared to six other tested volatile organic compounds as well as to humidity. The sensitivities to o-xylene and p-xylene were −0.27 and −0.19 kHz/ppm of vapor concentration in air, respectively. The sensor exhibits excellent repeatability and stability over a period of at least 75 days, and relatively quick response times (on the order of a minute), but rather low recovery times (in the range of several minutes). The sensor's sensitivity increases linearly with the mass of the polymer, but it is only slightly dependent on the sensor's length.