Characterization of polyaniline / metal oxide composite films for sensing ammonia

Sensors are attractive because of their affordable price, compact size, the opportunity that they provide in determining various analytes (gases) under special conditions both in the laboratory and in the field. The increased concern about environmental protection has led to continuous expansion in sensor development. Ammonia is amongst a group of very toxic gases that can cause harm to our body. It is important to be able to monitor and detect this gas in many applications. The objective of the research is to discover a better way to fabricate an ammonia sensor. This paper describes and characterizes the gas sensing properties of a PANI (polyaniline)/Co3O4 composite thin film NH3 sensor at room temperature. Additional research is done to compare and contrast how the polymer (polyaniline) reacts with other metal oxides (PANI/V2O5 and PANI/Nb 2O5) at different temperatures. The results in the present work demonstrate that the PANI/Co3O4 composite sample devices produced optimum ammonia gas sensing characteristics at room temperature.