A Flexible Capacitive Pressure Sensor Based on Ionic Liquid

• Main Authors: Xiaofeng Yang, Yishou Wang, Xinlin Qing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2018-07-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: sensor; aerodynamic pressure; ionic liquid; electrical double layer
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/18/7/2395

A flexible microfluidic super-capacitive pressure sensor is developed to measure the surface pressure of a complex structure. The innovative sensor contains a filter paper filled with ionic liquid, and coated with two indium tin oxide polyethylene terephthalate (ITO-PET) films on the top and bottom, respectively. When external pressure is applied on the top ITO-PET film of the sensor mounted on the surface of an aircraft, the capacitance between the two ITO-PET films will change because of the deformation of the top ITO-PET film. The external pressure will be determined based on the change of the capacitance. Compared to the traditional pressure sensor, the developed sensor provides a high sensitivity of up to 178.5 nF/KPa and rapid dynamic responses for pressure measurement. Meanwhile, experiments are also conducted to study the influence of the thickness of the sensing film, sensing area, temperature, and humidity.