Conductive polymer sensing circuits

It is certain that electrically conductive polymers have attracted much attention in the field of solid state science in recent years. They are expected to have convenient function in the production of useful electric or electronic devices such as the electrodes in rechargeable batteries, pn-junctions for use in integrated circuits (ICs) or in photovoltaic devices, and so on. In the normal sense, the organic polymers, even the 7r-conju-gated systems having mobile 7r electrons, are typical insulators of poor electrical conductivity and have been utilized as dielectric material. This is considered to be a result of the Peierls transition (Peierls, 1955), namely, a metallic-insulator transition, e.g., for polyacetylene, which is characteristic in the one-dimensional system. This situation is circumvented by the doping technique, in which the electron acceptors or donors... 

Physieal models and equivalent circuit representations for conducting polymer actuators and sensors are presented, including mechanical, electrical, and electromechanical descriptions. The underlying concept of most models is that strain is proportional to charge density, and sense voltage is proportional to stress. Dynamics are determined by the rate of charge transfer, as well as the mechanical properties of... 

The main sensing material/transducer consists of building blocks of conducting polymer (based on perylene core molecule) coated on nanofibres. Because the core molecule is the CP they were directly coated onto interdigitated electrodes to form an electrical circuit. Due to the inherent redox nature of CP [104, 105] the transducer is sensitive especially to redox active explosives, pesticides and other chemicals including amines, nitros, peroxides, ammonia, phenols and phosphines. Another similar electrochemical devices based on nanofibres were created by Nottingham Trent University and Nano products ltd (UK). 

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