SFedU scientists have created a compact device for measuring air humidity. They managed to overcome the typical problem of "expensive, highly specialized and difficult" for such devices by developing a universal, affordable and reliable technology. The sensor can work independently or as part of environmental monitoring systems in agriculture, medicine, and industry.
Humidity control is extremely important, because excess moisture provokes the growth of microorganisms and corrosion of equipment, and too dry air irritates mucous membranes and increases the risk of fire. Therefore, monitoring of this parameter is necessary in industries, medical institutions and agriculture.
Today, there are many devices on the market that determine air humidity, said Igor Uflyand, Head of the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the SFedU Faculty of Chemistry. Some of them are expensive due to the principle of operation, others require many components from scarce materials, others are not universal and can operate in narrow ranges of humidity values.
SFedU specialists have proposed a compact and inexpensive humidity sensor that shows reliable values in the range from 0 to 100 percent of the moisture content in the air. The versatility and durability of the device is ensured by a specially created copper-containing polymer-based nanocomposite.
"To obtain the active layer material, conventional methods of material synthesis are used, which do not require scarce and expensive devices. At the final stage, thermolysis of the obtained compounds is used under controlled conditions, which is quite well known and its technique has been developed down to the smallest detail, including by us," explained Professor Igor Uflyand.
The new device differs from its analogues in other parameters: it reacts faster to changes in the external environment and quickly recovers after the next measurement, the specialist emphasized. The sensor also demonstrates long-term operation without loss of quality of the main characteristics.
In the future, SFedU specialists plan to create new materials and devices for detecting substances in the air and other environmental objects. The work was carried out with the support of the Russian Science Foundation. The results are presented in the scientific journal ChemPhysMater.
Southern Federal University is a participant in the strategic academic leadership program "Priority 2030" (national project "Youth and Children"), and focuses on the development of key scientific areas that should respond to global long-term challenges facing humanity, the country and the world.
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