New composite materials based on AuNanoparticles: Electrical Behaviour and sensing perspective

The interest on metal nanoparticles and in particular on gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) has risen exponentially in the past decade, due to the unique properties of gold in nanostructured dimensions. The use of these products as chemical interactive materials (CIM) on resistive type and quartz microbalance (QMB) sensors has been recently developed. Composites of AuNPs with phenylacetylene copolymers have been produced and tested for sensing purposes. Humidity and alcohols sensors based on composites AuNPs/copoly(phenylacetylene/allyl mercaptan) AuNPs/P(PA/AM) and AuNPs/ copoly(phenylacetylene/phenylacetylthiolate) AuNPs/P(PA/PAS) have been studied using resistive type and QMB devices.