QRsens: Dual-purpose quick response code with built-in colorimetric sensors

Escobedo, P., Ramos-Lorente, C. E., Ejaz, A., Erenas, M. M., Martínez-Olmos, A., Carvajal, M. A., Garcia Nunez, C. , de Orbe-Payá, I., Capitán-Vallvey, L. F. and Palma, A. J. (2023) QRsens: Dual-purpose quick response code with built-in colorimetric sensors. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 376, 133001. (doi: 10.1016/j.snb.2022.133001)

Abstract

QRsens represents a family of Quick Response (QR) sensing codes for in-situ air analysis with a customized smartphone application to simultaneously read the QR code and the colorimetric sensors. Five colorimetric sensors (temperature, relative humidity (RH), and three gas sensors (CO₂, NH₃ and H₂S)) were designed with the aim of proposing two end-use applications for ambient analysis, i.e., enclosed spaces monitoring, and smart packaging. Both QR code and colorimetric sensing inks were deposited by standard screen printing on white paper. To ensure minimal ambient light dependence of QRsens during the real-time analysis, the smartphone application was programmed for an effective colour correction procedure based on black and white references for three standard illumination temperatures (3000, 4000 and 5000 K). Depending on the type of sensor being analysed, this integration achieved a reduction of ∼71 – 87% of QRsens's dependence on the light temperature. After the illumination colour correction, colorimetric gas sensors exhibited a detection range of 0.7–4.1%, 0.7–7.5 ppm, and 0.13–0.7 ppm for CO2, NH3 and H2S, respectively. In summary, the study presents an affordable built-in multi-sensing platform in the form of QRsens for in-situ monitoring with potential in different types of ambient air analysis applications.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This study was funded by Spanish MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ (Projects PID2019–103938RB-I00, ECQ2018–004937-P and grant IJC2020–043307-I) and Junta de Andalucía (Projects B-FQM-243-UGR18, P18-RT-2961). The projects and the grant were partially supported by European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) and by European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Garcia Nunez, Dr Carlos
• Authors: Escobedo, P., Ramos-Lorente, C. E., Ejaz, A., Erenas, M. M., Martínez-Olmos, A., Carvajal, M. A., Garcia Nunez, C., de Orbe-Payá, I., Capitán-Vallvey, L. F., and Palma, A. J.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering
• Journal Name: Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 0925-4005
• ISSN (Online): 1873-3077
• Published Online: 17 November 2022
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical 376:133001
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License