Phenomena based dynamic model of carbon black-polymer composite sensors

A novel physically based mathematical model of carbon black-polymer sensor-analyte uptake and response is proposed. The advantage of this modelling approach is that the environmental dependencies of sensor responses may be investigated. It also permits the chemical kinetics of the sensors to be separated from the physical aspects of the sensors. Data were collected under varying ambient environmental conditions. Three different polymers were tested. A total of 336 such experiments were performed over a 2-week period. The model was validated with respect to these data, and was fitted to two vapour responses in parallel, showing its applicability to 'real world systems'. Evident temperature dependence of the parameters were judged to be most important outcome of this study.