Development of quartz crystal microbalance based sensor for real-time ozone monitoring

This paper presents the development of quartz crystal microbalance based sensor for the real-time monitoring of ozone (O
₃
) in workplaces in the range of 10-100 ppbv (part per billion per volume). Quartz crystal microbalances are interesting because of their capability to detect the adsorption of gaseous compounds on the crystal coating. Here, we focused on the polybutadiene performance as coating material in terms of stability, sensibility and reproducibility under real conditions. Chemical sensors were exposed to low concentration of ozone in a dedicated controlled test atmosphere device in order to determine the influence of several parameters: temperature, humidity, concentration and sampling flow rate. Results show that our detection device can detect 7 ppb in few minutes and does not undergo decrease of sensibility under moisture.