Application of the solubility parameter concept to the design of chemiresistor arrays

Arrays of unheated chemically sensitive resistors (chemiresistors) can serve as extremely small, low-power consumption sensors with simple read-out electronics. We report here results on carbon-loaded polymer composites, as well as polymeric ionic conductors, as chemiresistor sensors. We use the solubility parameter concept to understand and categorize the chemiresistor responses and, in particular, we compare chemiresistors fabricated from polyisobutylene (PIB) to results from PIE-coated acoustic wave sensors. One goal is to examine the possibility that a small number of diverse chemiresistors can sense all possible solvents, the "universal solvent sensor array." (C) 1999 The Electrochemical Society. S0013-4651(99)01-069-1. All rights reserved.