Diffusion-Modulated Colorimetric Sensor for Continuous Gas Detection

Due to their high sensitivity and selectivity, low cost, and good compatibility for sensor array integration, colorimetric gas sensors are widely used in hazardous gas detection, food freshness assessment, and gaseous biomarker identification. However, colorimetric gas sensors are usually designed for one-time discrete measurement because the sensing materials are entirely exposed to analytes during the sensing process. The fast consumption of sensing materials limits colorimetric sensors’ applications in continuous analytes monitoring, increases the operation complexity, and brings challenges for calibration. In this work, we reported a novel sensor design to prolong the lifetime of colorimetric gas sensors by engineering the gas diffusion process to preserve the sensing materials. We compared two geometries for gas diffusion control in a sensing matrix through simulation and experiment on an ammonia sensing platform. We found that the 2-D gas diffusion geometry enabled a better sensor performance, including more stable and higher sensitivity and a more linear response to ammonia concentration compared to 1-D gas diffusion geometry. We also demonstrated the usability of this diffusion-modulated colorimetric sensor for continuous environmental ammonia monitoring.