Alcohol Recognition by Flexible, Transparent and Highly Sensitive Graphene-Based Thin-Film Sensors

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 4317 - 10
• Main Authors: Xu, Xuezhu, Zhou, Jian, Xin, Yangyang, Lubineau, Gilles, Ma, Qian, Jiang, Long
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 28-06-2017; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/301/1005/1009; 639/925/918/1052; Air quality; Air quality control; Alcohol; Cellulose; Chemical sensors; Environmental control; Ethanol; Food industry; Food quality; Humanities and Social Sciences; Indoor air quality; Indoor environments; Industrial production; Ionization; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sensors; Thin films; Vapors
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-04636-2

Chemical sensors detect a variety of chemicals across numerous fields, such as automobile, aerospace, safety, indoor air quality, environmental control, food, industrial production and medicine. We successfully assemble an alcohol-sensing device comprising a thin-film sensor made of graphene nanosheets (GNs) and bacterial cellulose nanofibers (BCNs). We show that the GN/BCN sensor has a high selectivity to ethanol by distinguishing liquid–phase or vapor–phase ethanol (C
2
H
6
O) from water (H
2
O) intelligently with accurate transformation into electrical signals in devices. The BCN component of the film amplifies the ethanol sensitivity of the film, whereby the GN/BCN sensor has 12400% sensitivity for vapor-phase ethanol compared to the pure GN sensor, which has only 21% sensitivity. Finally, GN/BCN sensors demonstrate fast response/recovery times and a wide range of alcohol detection (10–100%). The superior sensing ability of GN/BCN compared to GNs alone is due to the improved wettability of BCNs and the ionization of liquids. We prove a facile, green, low-cost route for the assembly of ethanol-sensing devices with potential for vast application.