Conventional SO₂ scrubbing agents, namely calcium oxide and zeolites, are often used to remove SO₂ using a strong or irreversible adsorption-based process. However, adsorbents capable of sensing and selectively capturing this toxic molecule in a reversible manner, with in-depth understanding of structure–property relationships, have been rarely explored. Here we report the selective removal and sensing of SO₂ using recently unveiled fluorinated metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). Mixed gas adsorption experiments were performed at low concentrations ranging from 250 p.p.m. to 7% of SO₂. Direct mixed gas column breakthrough and/or column desorption experiments revealed an unprecedented SO₂ affinity for KAUST-7 (NbOFFIVE-1-Ni) and KAUST-8 (AlFFIVE-1-Ni) MOFs. Furthermore, MOF-coated quartz crystal microbalance transducers were used to develop sensors with the ability to detect SO₂ at low concentrations ranging from 25 to 500 p.p.m.

The application of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as a sensing layer has been attracting great interest over the last decade, due to their uniform properties in terms of high porosity and tunability, which provides a large surface area and/or centers for trapping/binding a targeted analyte. Here we report the fabrication of a highly sensitive humidity sensor that is based on composite thin films of HKUST-1 MOF and carbon nanotubes (CNT). The composite sensing films were fabricated by spin coating technique on a quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM) and a comparison of their shift in resonance frequencies to adsorbed water vapor (5 to 75% relative humidity) is presented. Through optimization of the CNT and HKUST-1 composition, we could demonstrate a 230% increase in sensitivity compared to plain HKUST-1 film. The optimized CNT-HKUST-1 composite thin films are stable, reliable, and have an average sensitivity of about 2.5×10−5 (Δf/f) per percent of relative humidity, which is up to ten times better than previously reported QCM-based humidity sensors. The approach presented here is facile and paves a promising path towards enhancing the sensitivity of MOF-based sensors

Metal–organic frameworks anchored with metal oxide nanoparticles for the detection of H ₂ S gas with enhanced sensitivity.

We present a comparative study of two types of sensor with different transduction techniques but coated with the same sensing material to determine the effect of the transduction mechanism on the sensing performance of sensing a target analyte. For this purpose, interdigitated electrode (IDE)-based capacitors and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM)-based resonators were coated with a zeolitic–imidazolate framework (ZIF-8) metal–organic framework thin films as the sensing material and applied to the sensing of the volatile organic compound acetone. Cyclic immersion in methanolic precursor solutions technique was used for depositing the ZIF-8 thin films. The sensors were exposed to various acetone concentrations ranging from 5.3 to 26.5 vol % in N₂ and characterized/compared for their sensitivity, hysteresis, long-term and short-term stability, selectivity, detection limit, and effect of temperature. Furthermore, the IDE substrates were used for resistive transduction and compared using capacitive transduction.

In this work, a Diagonal Tunneling Dielectrically Modulated Tunnel Field Effect Transistor (DT-DMTFET) architecture is proposed for label-free bio-sensing application. The performance of this sensor architecture is comprehensively investigated with the help of extensive numerical device simulations. The architecture has been carefully engineered to exploits the diagonal band to band tunneling (BTBT) component in favor of bio-molecule detection. The essential physics of the transduction mechanism for lateral tunneling, vertical tunneling, and diagonal tunneling-based DMTFETs is extensively analyzed from device electrostatics and transport mechanisms. The transduction efficiency of the sensor devices is quantitatively assessed in terms of current sensitivity, where DT-DMTFET exhibits a sensitivity of 3590 compared to 2514 and 1550 observed in lateral tunneling (LT) and vertical tunneling (VT) dominated DMTFETs, respectively. The optimum sensitivity of DT-DMTFET is observed at 4V and 0.4 V gate and drain biases ranges of operation, where the same is observed at a gate bias of 5V and 7V for LT- and VT- DMTFET, respectively. Furthermore, the device design aspects are studied in detail to identify the relevant structural parameters and subsequently optimize the sensing performance of the DT-DMTFET. Finally, an extensive comparative performance study establishes that the DT-DMTFETs offer more than 50% and 100 % improvements in the current sensitivity compared to their lateral and vertical tunneling-based counterparts, respectively, over a range of bio-molecule sample specifications.