The responses of lead phthalocyanine thin films upon encountering of NO2 ga
s were studied both experimentally and theoretically. A surface adsorption/
desorption and bulk diffusion mechanism was proposed to describe the respon
se. Laplace transform was employed to solve the resulting diffusion equatio
n and an analytical solution was obtained. The analytical results show that
the steady state current depends on parameters such as film thickness, gas
diffusivity, adsorption and desorption rate constants, etc. Diffusivity, a
dsorption and desorption rate constants can be extracted from the nonlinear
least square fitting of experimental data with analytical results. The obt
ained gas diffusivity, which depends on film morphology, remains fairly con
stant as film thickness changes. From the results of this study, it was con
cluded that the adsorption of NO2 by lead phthalocyanine is controlled by t
he surface adsorption and desorption with negligible diffusion resistance.
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