For monitoring diverse pollutants in a complicated water environment, the design and development of various detection strategies are necessary. Here, we introduce a general strategy of water monitoring aimed at amphiphilic pollutants using carbon nanotube based film. The pollutants with amphiphilic characteristics can tune the wetting behavior between carbon nanotubes and water molecules, leading to the change in the interface resistance of the carbon nanotube based film. The experimental results demonstrate that the change ratio of the film resistance is related to the concentration of pollutants in solution. This monitoring strategy is general for the detection of amphiphilic materials in mixed solution, such as surfactants and some organic solvent. The ability to achieve a sensitive and repeatable change in film resistance has potential applications in high-sensitivity, real-time, long-lasting, and multiple water monitoring.
Keywords: amphiphilic property; conductivity; interface resistance; water monitoring; wetting behavior.