Graphene/PEDOT:PSS Hybrid Ink Based Flexible and Eco-friendly Humidity Sensor for Early Plant Leaf Stress Monitoring

Abstract

In this work, we present a flexible and eco-friendly humidity sensor suitable for early plant leaf stress monitoring. The humidity sensor was fabricated using graphene/PEDOT:PSS hybrid ink deposited via drop-casting method on interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) screen printed on a eco-friendly paper substrate. Contact angle measurement, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) studies were performed to demonstrate hydrophilic nature, surface morphology and elemental analysis, respectively, of the sensing layer. The sensor exhibited excellent sensing performance in the measured relative humidity (%RH) range from 25% RH to 94% RH having a maximum % response of 226.5%. The sensor demonstrated a nearly linear response (adj. R² = 0.99) in the considered range with a slope observed as 3.21%/%RH. Multi-cyclic repeatability and reproducibility analysis further confirmed high reliability and consistent performance of the developed sensor. Furthermore, the capability of the sensor was successfully evaluated through capturing variations in plant physiological health status (under different environmental conditions, such as un-watered, water availability and solar irradiation) via monitoring microclimatic relative humidity (%RH) variations on plant (Epiremnun aureum) leaves. Through establishing the %RH values for healthy crops or plants under normal (well-watered) and stress conditions (un-watered or excessive solar irradiations), sensor seems to demonstrate strong potential for smart agriculture i.e., detecting early plant leaf stress.

Code and data availability

公開本文の所在を確認できませんでした。非公開または購読が必要な可能性があります。

No evidence-backed public reproduction asset is currently recorded.