Performance of POSS layer on Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) sensor for Chemical Warfare Agents (CWAs) detection

초록

Early and clear detection of various chemical warfare agents (CWAs) is crucial for people safety as well as military operation. The response and selectivity of targeted chemical species in the detection of various CWAs, such as nerve agents, blister agents, blood agents, mustard (HD), are critical factors due to their lethal natures. To design the sensitive sensor, the detecting layer which can easily react with CWAs is required to possess the function of fast response and high selectivity. In this study, we designed surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensor with an operating frequency of 250MHz by interdigital transducers (IDT) configuration on a Quartz substrate [1]. For the sensing layer, we selected polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) as a CWAs sensing layer and modified its functional groups to improve the adsorption of targeted simulants, which are readily attached on the surface of POSS [2,3]. Synthesized POSS was dissolved in ethanol and coated on a SAW device by drop coating method. After drying process, the SAW sensor was mounted the testing equipment with mass flow controller system for sensing test. Also the sensing apparatus was tested under a constant temperature as well as humidity condition to minimize the environmental influence. The response and selectivity of SAW sensors under different target simulants- DMMP, DEP, DPGME, TEP and ECA ? were measured and compared by a network analyzer [4].