A Carbon Nanotube-Functional Polymer Composite Film for Low-Power Indoor CO2 Monitoring

Indoor air quality (IAQ) has been a growing concern in recent years, only to be expedited by the COVID-19 pandemic. A common provisional measure for IAQ is carbon dioxide (CO2), which is commonly used to inform the ventilation control of buildings. However, few commercially available sensors exist that can reliably measure CO2 while being low cost, exhibiting low power consumption, and being easily deployable for use in applications such as occupancy monitoring. This work presents a polymer composite-based chemiresistive CO2 sensor that leverages branched poly(ethylenimine) (PEI) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) as the CO2 absorbing layer. This polymer blend was incorporated with single wall carbon nanotubes (CNT), which serve as the charge carriers. Prototype sensors were assessed in a bench-top environmental test chamber which varied temperature (22-26 degrees C), relative humidity level (20-80%), CO2 concentration (400-20,000 ppm), as well as other gas constituents to simulate typical and extreme indoor conditions. The results indicate that the proposed system could ultimately serve as a low-power alternative to current commercially available technologies for indoor CO2 monitoring.

Automated summary

Indoor air quality (IAQ) has become a growing concern, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study introduces a polymer composite-based CO2 sensor that is low-cost, low-power, and easily deployable. Experimental results demonstrate its feasibility in typical and extreme indoor conditions.