Sensors future developments

More details on appliance markets are given in Chapter 2, together with some data on the sensors in question. There has been some recent research into the markets of modern micromechanical sensors in household appliances, documenting the market potential for various types of sensors in this area, including those for pressure, acceleration and tilt, thermopiles, flow and gas sensors [3]. Examples of future developments will also be given. 

It is also interesting to look into the future use of sensors in household appliances. An attempt to do this is made in Chapter 6 where the influence factors in this broad field are analyzed. These include socio-economic data of the end users (like age of the population) and their preferences (like savings of energy, water and detergents), ease of use and cost of ownership, as described in Chapter 6.1. One specific and interesting future development can be foreseen - the integration of home appliances into heretofore strictly separated areas, such as... 

Sensors for Small Appliances - Current and Future Developments... 

Potyrailo, R. A. Hobbs, S. E. Hieftje, G. M., Optical waveguide sensors in analytical chemistry Today s instrumentation, applications and trends for future development, Fresenius J. Anal. Chem. 1998, 362, 349 373... 

In view of the future development of sensors driven by increasing demand for accuracy and precision, and by the opening of new fields close to the biological area (which is oriented toward nano-biosensor fabrication), it appears even more important to properly use the most relevant sensor keywords, such as response curve, sensitivity, noise, drift, resolution, and selectivity. 

Although the bulk of PDA sensors involve vesicles and Langmuir monolayers, a few examples of responsive PDA assemblies based on bolaamphiphiles and diyne silica nanocomposites have been reported (Lu et al. 2001 Song et al. 2001, 2004 Yang et al. 2003 Peng et al. 2006). Although these materials have not been broadly utilized for analyte sensing, they do exhibit the thermochromic, solvatochro-mic, and pH responsive behavior seen with monolayers and liposomes and hold promise for future development. 

The following future developments are expected to improve the sensor characteristics and to expand its use ... 

The scope of the tether-directed remote functionalization has been expanded from Cgo to the higher fullerene C70, and the described reactions are completely regioselective, featuring, in the case of C70, the kinetically disfavored addition pattern. The crown ether is a real template, since it can be readily removed by transesterification, giving a much-improved access to certain bis-adducts that are not accessible by the direct route. Cation-binding studies by CV reveal that cyclophane-type crown ethers derived from C60 and C70 form stable complexes with metal cations, and a perturbation of the fullerene reduction potentials occurs because the cation is tightly held close to the fullerene surface. This conclusion is of great importance for future developments of fullerene-based electrochemical ion sensors. 

DNA biosensors are also of great interest for the future development of microelectronic sensors for the detection of biological compounds and antigens. DNA would act as a promoter between the electrode and the biological molecule under study. Recently, some electrochemical research has been done in this direction with the aim of studying the interaction of DNA immobilized on the electrode surface with substances in solution. 

Abstract This chapter provides a summary of status of combinatorial development of materials for chemical and biological sensors and an outlook for the future developments. 

Application of the miniaturized biosensors for metabolite estimation in whole blood is another important concept for future development. The improvement in sensitivity, linear range and response time was achieved by miniaturization of the sensors and has been proven in the case of whole-blood glucose, urea and lactate. A useful feature of miniaturization is that the smaller the flow channel, the smaller are the dispersion and dilution effects, favouring whole blood measurement with minimum error. In the case of clinical estimations, the results of the measurement on miniaturized thermal biosensor are more reliable. 

Tire pressure is an important factor for road safety, tire life, comfort, and the fuel consumption of the vehicle. Despite the evident importance and manifold approaches, systems for monitoring of tire pressure are mostly only available in luxury cars. Future development will be characterized by further innovation of the sensor technique. Higher integrated and more intelligent sensor components will... 

Section 14.2 presents a description of the TDL technique for temperature measurement, including the theory and basic principles behind the method. Section 14.3 provides a historical overview of the development of this technique to provide a sense of the considerable amount of research that has been performed in this field to date. Section 14.4 provides details of four TDL-based systems capable of temperature measurement in full-scale environments that are thought to be of particular interest to the industrial combustion community. Finally, Section 14.5 contains some concluding remarks about the current state of TDL sensors and possible outcomes of future developments. 

Thus, these volumes present for the first time a comprehensive description of chemical and biochemical sensors with emphasis placed upton both, technical and scientific fundamentals and applications. The aim is to offer well-founded knowledge to scientists and technicians and to show todays technical capabilities in this sensor field. Furthermore, both volumes together are intended to foster the future developments and applications of sensors and at the same time serve as a useful reference work. 

These speciHcations can only be reached by reconvolution of a determined transfer function of the mainstream sensors. In the case of CO2 these requirements are met approximately by the new mainstream sensors from Digger and Novametrics. In the case of O2 sensors the performance of currently available sensors does not meet the specification needed. Fast O2 sensors under development may meet these requirements in the future, but are not yet available. 

Out of the manifold of transducers only a few are relevant for chemical sensors in clinical diagnosis, either in already existing devices or through their potential in future developments. 

Since hydrogen peroxide is the product of reactions catalysed by a huge number of oxidase enzymes and is essential in food, pharmaceutical, and envitonmental analysis, its detection was and remains a necessity. Many attempts have been made in order to develop a biosensor that would be sensitive, stable, inexpensive and easy to handle. The most popular and efficient of them are amperometric enzyme biosensors, which utihsed different types of mediators and enzymes, mosdy peroxidase and catalase. Unfortunately many of the sensors developed do not mea the requirements for a practical device, which has a balance of technological charaaeristics (sensitivity, reliability, stability) and commercial adaptability (easy of mass production and low price). Thus a window of opportunity still remains open for future development. We hope that the present work will inspire other researches for further advances in the area of biosensors, in particular sensors for detection of such an important analyte as hydrogen peroxide. 

The future development of smart sensor design is expected to provide an additional control with which to enhance selectivity. This will be achieved by creating optical micro-arrays of QDs that have different surface functionalities and sizes on nanopore array platforms that incorporate a temperature gradient. Pattern recognition with a multivariate data analysis tool will facilitate QD-based sensing technology for gas detection of high speciation and a sensitive manner for real-world applications. 

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