Functionalized Carbon Cloth Device for pH Sensing

The assessment of pH is of significant importance in evaluating water quality, as it has huge implications for taste perception, chemical reactions, and biological processes. This work demonstrates a simple and promising method of a potentiometric device for pH sensing with a response time of less than 1 minute. This device is developed by electropolymerizing aniline (PANI), a conducting polymer on the surface of carbon cloth (CC). CC is utilized as a working electrode and sealed with a customized acrylic design to form a 3-electrode system. The morphological study is conducted to understand the formation of emeraldine salt form of PANI. A wide pH range of 2 to 12 is tested by using open circuit voltammetry and the sensitivity of the proposed senor is found to be 1.79 mV pH
^-1
mm
^-2
. Moreover, the interference analysis is performed utilizing alkaline metals and weak acids. Subsequently, real samples analysis was carried out, by using commercially available lake water samples, observing a maximum error of 10.85%. The device showed a wide range, good sensitivity and applicability in real time pH monitoring.