Description
Rapid urbanisation and industrialisation have increased the demand for advanced air quality
monitoring systems that are flexible, cost-effective, and seamlessly integrable into everyday
environments. The fabrication and evaluation of a textile-based chemiresistive gas sensor
developed on a nylon substrate using plasma surface treatment to enhance the deposition and
adhesion of reduced graphene oxide/metal oxide (rGO/MOx) ink-based sensing layers for
room-temperature gas detection. Although metal oxide (MOx)-based sensors dominate the
commercial gas-sensing market due to their high sensitivity and economic viability, many
existing devices rely on rigid substrates and elevated operating temperatures, which restricts
their application in wearable and textile-based platforms.
To address these limitations, nylon fabric is treated with low-temperature plasma to enhance
surface energy, wettability, and the availability of functional groups, thereby enabling
uniform deposition of sensing materials. Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene
sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) is drop-casted onto the plasma-treated nylon substrate to serve as
flexible electrodes, followed by drop-casting of the rGO/MOx sensing ink to form the active
sensing layer. The morphological and elemental characteristics of the rGO/MOx-coated nylon
substrate are investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron
microscopy (TEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX).
The fabricated wearable nylon sensor is expected to demonstrate sensitive and stable
detection of atmospheric toxic gases at room temperature, with measurable resistance
variations corresponding to gas exposure. Gas sensing performance, including response and
recovery behaviour, will be evaluated using a gas sensing measurement setup. The proposed
plasma-engineered textile platform offers a promising pathway toward flexible, low-power,
and wearable air quality monitoring systems.