Electronic nose system based on a functionalized capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array for selective detection of plant volatiles

Here, a small, low-power, wireless gas sensor platform for selective detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from plants under different abiotic or biotic stress conditions is described. This sensor platform is implemented based on a capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array, in which elements were functionalized with a variety of materials including polymers, phthalocyanines, and metals to improve selectivity. Input impedance measurements of the functionalized CMUT array were compared to pre-coating measurements to analyze the mechanical loading. The CMUT arrays were then exposed to VOCs known to be emitted by plants with different concentrations under dry air flow at room temperature. The results demonstrated that 1-Octanol created the strongest response across different channels and a resolution of 3-ppb was calculated for the CMUT element functionalized using silver ink when exposed to 1-Octanol. The relative responses of different channels to tested volatiles were observed to be different. The k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) algorithm was used for the gas classification by dividing the data to training and test groups. The k-NN results showed that the gases at low concentrations were successfully classified with better than 97 % accuracy. Finally, to emulate the ambient atmosphere for plants, the gas tests were repeated by adding different levels of humidity to the gas flow. With a minimum 98 % accuracy, the k-NN classifier demonstrated that the functionalized CMUT array can be used for selective detection of the group of plant VOCs used in this study, even at different relative humidity levels in the ambient atmosphere.