Rapid prototyping of carbon-based chemiresistive gas sensors on paper.

Chem. functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising materials for sensing of gases and volatile org. compds. However, the poor soly. of carbon nanotubes hinders their chem. functionalization and the subsequent integration of these materials into devices. This manuscript describes a solvent-free procedure for rapid prototyping of selective chemiresistors from CNTs and graphite on the surface of paper. This procedure enables fabrication of functional gas sensors from com. available starting materials in <15 min. The 1st step of this procedure involves the generation of solid composites of CNTs or graphite with small mol. selectors-designed to interact with specific classes of gaseous analytes-by solvent-free mech. mixing in a ball mill and subsequent compression. The 2nd step involves deposition of chemiresistive sensors by mech. abrasion of these solid composites onto the surface of paper. Parallel fabrication of multiple chemiresistors from diverse composites rapidly generates cross-reactive arrays capable of sensing and differentiating gases and volatile org. compds. at part-per-million and part-per-thousand concns. [on SciFinder(R)]