Nanoporous polystyrene fibers functionalized by polyethyleneimine for enhanced formaldehyde sensing

Here we report a novel fabrication approach to highly sensitive formaldehyde sensors by the surface modification of the electrospun nanofibrous membranes. The three-dimensional fibrous membranes comprising nanoporous polystyrene (PS) fibers were electrospun deposition on quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), followed by the functionalization of the sensing polyethyleneimine (PEI) on the membranes. The morphology and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area of the fibrous PS membranes with fiber diameter of 110–870 nm were controllable by tuning the concentrations of PS solutions. After PEI modification, PEI particles in clusters of varying sizes (50 nm to 1.2 μm) were immobilized onto the surface of the bead-on-string structured nanoporous fibers. The developed formaldehyde-selective sensors exhibited fast response and low detection limit (3 ppm) at room temperature. This high sensitivity is attributed to the high surface-area-to-volume ratio (∼47.25 m2/g) of the electrospun porous PS membranes and efficient nucleophilic addition reaction between formaldehyde molecules and primary amine groups of PEI.