Enhanced Sensory Properties of a Multichannel Quartz Crystal Microbalance Coated with Polymeric Nanobeads

Sensors (Basel). 2007 Nov 23;7(11):2920-2928. doi: 10.3390/S7112920.

Abstract

In this study the sensorial performances of a four-channel quartz crystalmicrobalance implemented on a single quartz plate are reported and compared with those offour independent quartz crystal microbalances. Particular attention has been devoted to bothcross talk in responses and sensor sensitivity. A recently synthesized nanostructuredpolymer, poly[phenylacetylene-(co-2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate)], has been used aschemical interactive material. The interactions of our sensor system with relative humidityare also reported. The multichannel device shows a better homogeneity of the masssensitivity with a spread of the values less then 4% compared to a 50% spread observed inthe set of four microbalances.

Keywords: chemical sensors; multichannel quartz crystal microbalance; nanostructured polymers..