Explore on the quantitative analysis of specific surface area on sensitivity of polyacrylic acid-based QCM ammonia sensor

To understand the effect of specific surface area (SSA) on the sensitivity of quartz crystal microbalance (QCM)-based polyacrylic acid (PAA) ammonia sensor, PAA substrate was deposited as sensing coating on a QCM gold electrode through an electrospray/electrospinning process. The physical properties of fabricated PAA membranes were investigated through FESEM and BET. Experimental results showed various morphologies involving microparticles, beads-on-string and fibers, as well as a wide SSA range of 1.9-14.7m(2)/g. The fabricated ammonia sensors exhibited excellent sensing performance including rapid response, good reversibility and high selectivity, the ammonia-detection sensitivity was closely correlated with SSA expressed by a logarithmic function curve. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.