Enhancement of carbon nanotube antenna with gas sensor capabilities through chemical functionalization

A meshed carbon nanotube (CNT) thread patch antenna / gas sensor is modeled and simulated to predict the gas detection sensitivity enhancement that may be possible through chemical functionalization of the CNT thread with poly(m-aminobenzene sulfonic acid) (PABS). Previous results have indicated that a basic, untreated meshed CNT thread gas sensor/patch antenna will exhibit a very small frequency shift of ~0.2% in the presence of 10,000 ppm concentration of ammonia (NH₃). The full-wave simulation results in this paper indicate that application of PABS to the CNT threads that comprise this design will provide a comparable resonant frequency shift in the presence of only 50 ppm concentration of NH₃, yielding an improved sensitivity of over 200×.