Development and Characterization of a Novel Low-Cost Water-Level and Water Quality Monitoring Sensor by Using Enhanced Screen Printing Technology with PEDOT:PSS
Bei Wang,
Manuel Baeuscher,
Xiaodong Hu,
Markus Woehrmann,
Katharina Becker,
Nils Juergensen,
Moritz Hubl,
Piotr Mackowiak,
Martin Schneider-Ramelow,
Klaus-Dieter Lang,
Ha-Duong Ngo
Affiliations
Bei Wang
University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Wilhelminenhofstr. 75A, 12459 Berlin, Germany
Manuel Baeuscher
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25, 13355 Berlin, Germany
Xiaodong Hu
University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Wilhelminenhofstr. 75A, 12459 Berlin, Germany
Markus Woehrmann
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25, 13355 Berlin, Germany
Katharina Becker
University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Wilhelminenhofstr. 75A, 12459 Berlin, Germany
Nils Juergensen
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25, 13355 Berlin, Germany
Moritz Hubl
University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Wilhelminenhofstr. 75A, 12459 Berlin, Germany
Piotr Mackowiak
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25, 13355 Berlin, Germany
Martin Schneider-Ramelow
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25, 13355 Berlin, Germany
Klaus-Dieter Lang
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25, 13355 Berlin, Germany
Ha-Duong Ngo
University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Wilhelminenhofstr. 75A, 12459 Berlin, Germany
A novel capacitive sensor for measuring the water-level and monitoring the water quality has been developed in this work by using an enhanced screen printing technology. A commonly used environment-friendly conductive polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly (styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) for conductive sensors has a limited conductivity due to its high sheet resistance. A physical treatment performed during the printing process has reduced the sheet resistance of printed PEDOT:PSS on polyethylenterephthalat (PET) substrate from 264.39 Ω/sq to 23.44 Ω/sq. The adhesion bonding force between printed PEDOT:PSS and the substrate PET is increased by using chemical treatment and tested using a newly designed adhesive peeling force test. Using the economical conductive ink PEDOT:PSS with this new physical treatment, our capacitive sensors are cost-efficient and have a sensitivity of up to 1.25 pF/mm.
