P2.4.16 Silver Nanoparticles Loaded Electrospun Nanofibers for Humidity Optical Fiber Sensing

Event

14th International Meeting on Chemical Sensors - IMCS 2012
2012-05-20 - 2012-05-23
Nürnberg/Nuremberg, Germany

Chapter

P2.4 Nanostructured Sensors

Author(s)

A. Urrutia, P. Rivero, J. Goicoechea, F. Arregui, I. Matias - Public University of Navarra (UPNA), Campus Arrosadia S/N (Spain), Y. Rodríguez - Pinar del Río University (Cuba)

Pages

1550 - 1553

DOI

10.5162/IMCS2012/P2.4.16

ISBN

978-3-9813484-2-2

Price

free

Abstract

In this work, a new optical device based on silver loaded electrospun nanofibers (ENFs) for measuring Relative Humidity is proposed. Fiber mats composed of poly(acrylic acid) and beta-cyclodextrin were deposited onto an optical fiber core by electrospinning. Afterwards the ENFs were submitted to thermal curing. Then, the ENFs were loaded with Ag nanoparticles (Ag NPs) synthesized using a Ag+ loading step and a further reduction step. Several load/reduction cycles were performed. Ag NPs enhance significantly the optical response of the polymer-only fiber mats. The Ag NPs loaded fiber was tested at variations of Relative Humidity (RH). The results showed a very fast response of the absorbance spectra enabling high performance applications such as human breathing monitoring.