ABSTRACT

Permanent, rigorous and efficient monitoring of the environmental pollution involves the use of efficient devices, namely highly sensitive and reproducible sensors that work at room temperature. The most important part of such a sensor is the active membrane that detects these pollutants, based on chemical or physical phenomena. In the case of chemoresistive sensors, the use of new composite material obtained by mixing organic and inorganic compounds appears to be a promising alternative. Materials used in this project are: WO3, polyaniline and polypyrrole. The project aims to use alternative technologies based on laser  deposition for obtaining nanostructured composites (WO3/polymer) with high sensitivity to ammonia and low working temperature. Nanostructures are obtained by pulsed laser deposition and matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporation. Following detailed parametric studies, the first part of the project is based on identifying the optimal method for processing WO3/polymer composites as thin films having high specific area, good adhesion to the substrate and high conductivity. The second part will be dedicated to sensors based on the optimized nanostructures: design, processing and testing.