DEVELOPMENT OF A SURFACE-ACOUSTIC-WAVE SENSOR ARRAY FOR THE DETECTIONOF METHANOL IN FUEL VAPORS

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors have been coated with different or ganic polymers. Their sensitivities and selectivities towards gaseous solvents such as water, methanol and automotive fuel in dry air are de termined. Four sensors are combined to form an array and a pattern-rec ognition technique (partial least square regression, PLS) is applied t o sensor responses obtained from ternary mixtures of analytes. The obs erved sensitivities of the sensor array and the prediction properties of the model are discussed.