Wearable Chemical Gas Sensors with Color Changeable Functional Dyes Detecting Organophosphorus Nerve Agents

Abstract

Abstract Wearable military chemical gas sensors were realized using 19 kinds of color changeable functional dyes having great aggregative characteristics and the optimal wearable sensor with the best detection performance was selected. The wearable sensor was designed to exhibit color change properties that are sensitive to low concentration of chemical warfare agent (CWA) vapors at room temperature. The dyes were applied to cotton fabrics as a substrate of the wearable chemical gas sensors and examined their sensing properties, performance, and mechanisms for an organophosphorus simulant of nerve agents, dimethyl-methyl-phosphonate (DMMP). The color difference of almost 5 was obtained even at as low concentration as 3 ppm within 10 min and the spectrum was exhibited hypsochromic and hyperchromic shift. The sensing mechanism was considered to depend on solvatochromism, aggregative characteristics of the dye molecules and adsorption amounts of DMMP vapors on textile substrates on which the dyes were applied. In addition, the reusability of the wearable sensor was tested for 10 repeat cycles.