Anal. Chem. 2002, 74, 6383-6391
Thin Films of Block Copolymer Blends for Enhanced Performance of Acoustic Wave-Based Chemical Sensors Robert J. Lipert,*,† Ruth Shinar,†,@ Bikas Vaidya,†,‡ Andrew D. Pris,§,| Marc D. Porter,†,§,| Guojun Liu,⊥,# Ted D. Grabau,⊥ and John P. Dilger⊥
Microanalytical Instrumentation Center, Department of Chemistry, and Ames LaboratorysUSDOE, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, and Fisher Controls International, Inc., Marshalltown, Iowa 50158
The performance of quartz crystal oscillator-based volatile organic compound (VOC) sensors has been enhanced by using coatings made from poly(styrene-block-ethylene-cobutylene-block-styrene) block copolymers blended with resins and homopolymers. Enhanced performance is characterized by a wider operational temperature range (-10 to +50 °C) over which the sensors displayed, concurrently, an analyte sensitivity of >0.2 Hz/ppm toluene, minimal energy loss (resistance
