Response Time Dynamics of a Membrane-Based Microfluidic Gas Sensor

Abstract

Practical gas–liquid interfacing is paramount in microfluidic technology, particularly in developing microfluidic gas sensors. We have created an easily replicable membrane-based closed microfluidic platform (MB-MP) to achieve in situ gas–liquid contact for low-resource settings. We have fabricated the MB-MP using readily available materials like double-sided tape or parafilm without conventional soft lithographic techniques. The response characteristics of the MB-MP are studied using CO2 as the model gas and bromothymol blue dye as the sensing material. The dye’s color change, indicative of pH shifts due to CO2 absorption, is captured with a digital microscope and analyzed via the ImageJ software package v1.54g. The response shows saturation and regeneration parts when cycled between CO2 and N2, respectively. Experiments are conducted to investigate the response characteristics and saturation rate under different conditions, including changes in volumetric flow rate, gas stream velocity, and dye solution volume. We observe experimentally that an increase in volumetric flow rate decreases the delay and increases the saturation rate of the response, surpassing the impact of the gas stream’s increased velocity. Furthermore, increasing the dye volume results in an exponential decrease in the saturation rate and an increase in the delay. These insights are essential for optimizing the platform’s response for point-of-use applications.