In-situ fabrication of Cu-BDC on a quartz crystal microbalance for methane sensing at room temperature

A demand for a cost-effect and portable methane gas sensor has been increasing since new world-wide greenhouse gas regulations have been aggressively targeting methane emissions. Here, we present a methane sensing device which is made of Cu-BDC on a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). The Cu-BDC film is simply and rapidly fabricated using a facile intense pulsed light technique for in-situ growth of the film on the QCM. The fabricated sensor is characterized in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, and reproducibility under room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The experimental results show that resonant frequency change is linearly proportional to the methane concentration from 100 to 500 ppm. The fabricated sensor also exhibits higher selectivity for the methane gas compared to volatile organic compounds and water. Five gas sensors were fabricated with the same procedure at the same time and demonstrated good reproducibility.