Alcohol detection with PDMS coated optical fiber sensor

• Main Author: Tan, Chew Huan
• Other Authors: Chan Chi Chiu
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/68417
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In recent years, there is a wide range of optic fibers sensors that utilizes polymers as the waveguide materials for chemical sensing. In this project, PDMS based extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometry sensor was fabricated for alcohol detection. PDMS can adhere to polished surfaces without the need of the etching process, which eases the fabrication process of the sensor. When the proposed fiber senor is exposed to alcohol, the VOC-sensitive PDMS swells, which resulted in a wavelength shift. Thus, by analyzing the wavelength shift, the concentration of the alcohol can be detected and quantified. The results showed that the fiber sensor is sensitive towards all three alcohols (methanol, ethanol, and 2-propanol) used in the experiment. Focusing on high concentration in this project, the fiber sensor exhibited a fast response time of an average of 2 seconds. Therefore, the proposed PDMS-coated FPI fiber sensor is a low cost optical detection technique that can be used as a simple, rapid, and sensitive chemical sensing device that detects high concentration of hazardous substances in the environment.