Development of an electronic nose sensing platform for undergraduate education in nanotechnology

The teaching of the different aspects of a sensor system, with a focus on the involved nanotechnology, is a challenging, yet important task. We present the development of an electronic nose system that utilizes a nanoscale amperometric sensing mechanism for gas mixtures. The fabrication of the system makes use of a basic microfabrication facility, as well as an undergraduate chemistry laboratory for material synthesis and preparation. The sensing device consists of an array of cross-reactive sensors composed of metal-oxide semiconducting nanoparticles. Each sensor in the array produces a unique response in the presence of a target gas, allowing the sensor to determine the identity and concentration of multiple gases in a mixture. The educational aspects include microheater simulation and fabrication, design and fabrication of interdigitated electrodes, development of interfacing circuitry and software, development and calibration of a sensory array, sol-gel processing of nanoparticle films and their characterization, and details of the fundamental chemical sensing mechanism. © 2011 IOP Publishing Ltd