Tailoring Polyaniline for Improved Acetaldehyde Detection

This study investigates polyaniline (PANI) for its sensing characteristics for detecting acetaldehyde. Pristine PANI is further modified in two ways to improve its sensing capabilities: 1) addition of a side chain (i.e., two methyl groups) to form poly (2,5‐dimethylaniline), 2) addition of small amounts of metal oxide dopant (In2O3 in this case) to PANI. All the materials are evaluated for their sensing characteristics with respect to both sensitivity and selectivity. The sensitivity of PANI toward acetaldehyde is found to improve with both types of modification (i.e., poly (2,5‐dimethylaniline) and PANI doped with different wt.% of In2O3). However, upon evaluating selectivity toward acetaldehyde using binary and ternary gas mixtures, pristine PANI exhibited higher selectivity compared to its modified counterparts.