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Highly sensitive and selective room temperature ammonia sensor based on polyaniline thin film: in situ dip-coating polymerization

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Abstract

Polyaniline (PAni) thin film has been synthesized using chemical oxidation route to be used as highly sensitive and selective ammonia (NH3) sensors. In situ dip-coating chemical polymerization method has been used to grow PAni thin films on glass substrates. The morphological and structural properties of deposited thin film have been examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy techniques. Raman and FTIR analysis confirm the successful growth of PAni with long-chain conjugation, whereas SEM micrograph reveals the growth of nanofibrous structured polyaniline. An amorphous structure of the prepared polyaniline with perpendicular periodicity of the conjugated polymer chains has been observed through XRD analysis. The ammonia gas sensing properties, in terms of change in electrical resistance, of the prepared thin film sensor have been investigated at room temperature for different concentrations (25–150 ppm) of ammonia. The deposited film has sensitivity as high as 245% and selectivity (%) of ~ 67% towards ammonia gas (at 150 ppm). The gas sensing response of the deposited film is found to be increased with increasing concentration of ammonia and the observed behaviour is well corroborated with modified Freundlich’s sensitivity versus chemical concentration relation. The effect of humidity on the sensing response and other parameters associated with the figure of merits of sensor like response time, recovery time, selectivity, stability etc. have also been studied. The compensation of charge carriers, i.e. polarons and bipolarons, under the electron donating ammonia gas is considered to be the mechanism of gas sensing for the deposited PAni film. The synthesized PAni thin film sensor with low cost, high sensitivity, selectivity and durability can be utilized for the development of industrial ammonia sensor.

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The authors state that the datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

PK Goyal is thankful to J C Bose University of Science & Technology YMCA, Faridabad, for financial help in form of seed grant to carry out this work. One of the authors AS is thankful to the University for Ph.D. Research Scholarship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, J.C. Bose University of Science & Technology, YMCA, Faridabad, 121006, India

    Anita Sharma, Aarti Rajpal & Parveen K. Goyal

  2. Department of Physics, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, Delhi, 110007, India

    Ishpal Rawal

  3. Department of Physics, Shyam Lal College, University of Delhi, Delhi, 110032, India

    Anita Khokhar

  4. Department of Physics, Institute of Integrated and Honors Studies (IIHS), Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, 136119, India

    Vijay Kumar

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  1. Anita Sharma
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Contributions

AS contributed to conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data analysis, writing—original draft, visualization. IR contributed to methodology, investigation, data analysis and manuscript writing and editing. AR contributed to methodology, investigation, formal analysis, visualization, writing and editing. AK contributed to conceptualization, investigation and formal analysis. VK contributed to conceptualization, methodology, investigation and formal analysis. PKG contributed to conceptualization, investigation, formal analysis, visualization, writing—original draft, editing and supervision.

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Correspondence to Parveen K. Goyal.

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Sharma, A., Rawal, I., Rajpal, A. et al. Highly sensitive and selective room temperature ammonia sensor based on polyaniline thin film: in situ dip-coating polymerization. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 14071–14085 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-08338-y

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