5. Conclusion

The development of chemical gas sensors is currently booming, as the need to detect compounds in the atmosphere continues to grow. The production of these sensors requires in-depth research into the design, manufacture and shaping of sensitive materials. The performance of the sensitive device in relation to a given gas is characterized by its sensitivity, selectivity, reversibility and robustness. As these criteria were met for one of the polymers tested, an initial demonstrator based on the quartz microbalance principle was developed at CEA Le Ripault for the detection of nitroaromatic compounds close to TNT, using signal processing to optimize its selectivity. This is just the first step towards a sensor for detecting explosives with much lower vapour pressures (vapour pressure of TNT = 7.7 ppb