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

Arrays of unheated chemically sensitive resistors (chemiresistors) can serv e as extremely small, low-power consumption sensors with simple read-out el ectronics. We report here results on carbon-loaded polymer composites, as w ell as polymeric ionic conductors, as chemiresistor sensors. We use the sol ubility parameter concept to understand and categorize the chemiresistor re sponses and, in particular, we compare chemiresistors fabricated from polyi sobutylene (PIB) to results from PIE-coated acoustic wave sensors. One goal is to examine the possibility that a small number of diverse chemiresistor s can sense all possible solvents, the "universal solvent sensor array." (C ) 1999 The Electrochemical Society. S0013-4651(99)01-069-1. All rights rese rved.