Grant: Engage Grants Program

The early and accurate detection of hazardous chemicals is advantageous for both industrial use and forenvironmental cognition, and is of benefit to both the public and private sectors. Recent advances in materialsscience have led to the employment of novel nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotube (CNT) and graphene, forchemical sensing applications. These materials alter their properties in the presence of a given substance due totheir ability to absorb the chemicals on their surface. Indeed, chemical absorption produces changes in materialproperties such as real and imaginary impedance, DC resistance, and effective dielectric constant [1]. Thesechanges can be exploited to determine the presence of various chemical compounds by translating the materialeffects into measureable electrical quantities, such as changes in voltage, current, resonant frequency, andbackscattered power amplitude. In addition, there has been increasing effort towards combining thecapabilities of sensors and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to sense, process and transmit informationabout objects/personnel. In this proposal, we aim at integrating CO gas sensitive materials based on Carbonnanotubes produced by Raymor nanotech Inc. with passive RFID antennas for underground mines applications.By combining expertise in nanomaterials, sensors and RF/wireless communications technology, this projectaims to improve and optimize the performance of RFID sensors systems by providing an iteration toward thefundamental understanding of the factors responsible for their high performance in mining environments.