A flexible and multifunctional electronic nose using polyaniline/cotton fibrous membrane with a hierarchical structure

Abstract A novel flexible electronic nose (E-nose) with multiple sensing capabilities of gas/pressure/temperature is achieved by coating interfacial polymerized polyaniline (PANI) nanofibers on porous cotton textile. The E-nose has a competitive detecting ability of ammonia gas compared to the reported PANI-based material, achieving super low detection limit (1 ppm) as well as high sensitivity (10.3 for 50 ppm) due to the high surface area of hierarchical PANI nanofibers. Furthermore, the as-prepared E-nose possesses highly sensitive pressure response (0.073 kPa −1 ) and effective monitoring of temperature (0.44 °C −1 ). This work significantly enriches the E-nose’s functions to three further, which makes the E-nose more humanoid with sensing capabilities of smell, tactility, and hot/cold perception.