Single Layer Gold Hotplate, Printed on Polyimide, with Heater Used as Sensing Current Drain for Metal-oxide Gas Sensor

We report a simple transducer architecture based on two interdigitated inkjet-printed gold electrodes deposited on polymer substrate. The particularity of this transducer is the double functionality of the heater, since it works as heater and sensor electrode simultaneously. This way, a metal-oxide gas sensor can be realized easily using a two-step fabrication process, the printing of the two electrodes and their coating with the sensing film. The transducer was validated by coating it with tungsten oxide nanoneedles (NNs) functionalized with Pt nanoparticles (NPs) via aerosol assisted CVD method (AACVD) and then tested under different concentrations of H2 gas. The proposed flexible printed transducer allows the simple and cost-effective realization of metal oxide gas sensors. © 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.