Center for Embedded Network Sensing

This work describes the development and testing of a sensitive and selective potentiometric nitrate microsensor that are scaleable to large, dense sensor networks required to study environmental systems. We have developed flexible, miniature and inexpensive nitrate sensors by electropolymerizing pyrrole onto carbon fiber substrates, using nitrate as a dopant. Carbon microfibers were found to be an excellent substitute to expensive conductive materials, such as glassy carbon or platinum. The electrodes with a 3-5 micron layer of NO3 -doped polypyrrole (PPy) exhibited a promising lifetime (at least 2 month without changes in sensitivity and linear response), fast response times (seconds), and sensitivity competitive to commercial nitrate ISE.