Highly Sensitive Interdigitated Capacitive Humidity Sensors Based on Sponge-Like Nanoporous PVDF/LiCl Composite for Real-Time Monitoring

Enkhzaya Ganbold; Eun Seong Kim; Yang Li; Feifei Yin; Parshant Kumar Sharma; Jwa-Bin Jeon; Jong-Min Oh; Do Nam Lee; Nam Young Kim

doi:10.1021/acsami.2c20499

Highly Sensitive Interdigitated Capacitive Humidity Sensors Based on Sponge-Like Nanoporous PVDF/LiCl Composite for Real-Time Monitoring

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Jan 25;15(3):4559-4568. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c20499. Epub 2023 Jan 12.

Authors

Enkhzaya Ganbold^{1

2}, Eun Seong Kim¹, Yang Li^{1

3}, Feifei Yin¹, Parshant Kumar Sharma^{1

2}, Jwa-Bin Jeon^{1

4}, Jong-Min Oh^{1

4}, Do Nam Lee^{1

5

6}, Nam Young Kim^{1

2

5}

Affiliations

¹ RFIC Bio Centre, Kwangwoon University, 20 Kwangwoon-ro, Nowon-Gu, Seoul01897, South Korea.
² Department of Electronics Engineering, Kwangwoon University, 20 Kwangwoon-ro, Nowon-Gu, Seoul01897, South Korea.
³ School of Information Science and Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan250022, China.
⁴ Department of Electronic Materials Engineering, Kwangwoon University, 20 Kwangwoon-ro, Nowon-Gu, Seoul01890, South Korea.
⁵ NDAC Centre, Kwangwoon University, 20 Kwangwoon-ro, Nowon-Gu, Seoul01897, South Korea.
⁶ Ingenium College of Liberal Arts (Chemistry), Kwangwoon University, 20 Kwangwoon-ro, Nowon-Gu, Seoul01897, South Korea.

PMID: 36633438
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c20499

Abstract

In this study, a sponge-like poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)/lithium chloride (LiCl) nanocomposite-entrenched interdigitated capacitive (IDC) sensor was developed for real-time humidity-sensing applications. Here, we demonstrated a sponge-like nanoporous structure ranging from 200 nm to 2 μm size holes, the PVDF/LiCl structure fabricated on an interdigitated capacitor (IDC) electrode functioning as a high-performance sensor because of the presence of ionized LiCl. The nanoporous PVDF/LiCl composite-based humidity sensor exhibited a high sensitivity of 12.6 nF/% relative humidity (RH), a linearity of 0.990, and a low hysteresis of 2.6% in the range of 25-95% RH. The composite film exhibited a response time of 17.7 s, a recovery time of 21 s, and an intensified increase of 8.02 nF/s (a decrease of 6.7 nF/s). The sensor designed demonstrates ultra-high sensing characteristics with 10 times higher sensitivity, i.e., 12.678.96 pF/%RH as compared to other polymer-based composite humidity sensors. Owing to the sensing performance and portability, the proposed nanoporous PVDF/LiCl composite-based IDC sensor is expected to be a promising platform for a wide range of humidity-sensing applications, including real-time breath monitoring and non-contact sensing.

Keywords: capacitive humidity sensors; interdigitated capacitors (IDCs); poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF); polymer-based composite thin films; real-time monitoring.