Odors Can Be Amplified by Noses: Sensitivity Enhancing Bio-Inspired Nasal Structures for Micro Cataluminescence Gas Sensors

This paper presents a bio-inspired nasal turbinate structure design to enhance the sensitivity of a micro cata-luminescence (CTL) gas sensor for rapid gas detection. The turbinate structure mimics the human nasal turbinate and can modulate the airflow in the chamber containing the sensor. With the turbinate structure, the 9 mm ² CTL sensor can achieve a response time of 3 seconds for 50 ppm ethylene. The advantage of the turbinate structure is demonstrated by comparing the sensing performance with four different chambers, where the signal peaks with the turbinate structure is 70.10% higher than those without the turbinate structure. Furthermore, computational fluid dynamics simulations are carried out, and indicate that the proposed structure can increase the sensor surface pressure, resulting in increased gas adsorption and increased CTL responsiveness. This study is expected to be applied to rapid gas detection scenarios such as hazardous gas monitoring and battery thermal runaway warning.