Highly Sensitive Capacitive Gas Sensing at Ionic Liquid–Electrode Interfaces

We have developed an ultrasensitive gas-detection method based on the measurement of a differential capacitance of electrified ionic liquid (IL) electrode interfaces in the presence and absence of adsorbed gas molecules. The observed change of differential capacitance has a local maximum at a certain potential that is unique for each type of gas, and its amplitude is related to the concentration of the gas molecules. We establish and validate this gas-sensing method by characterizing SO2 detection at ppb levels with less than 1.8% signal from other interfering species (i.e., CO2, O2, NO2, NO, SO2, H2O, H2, and cyclohexane, tested at the same concentration as SO2). This study opens a new avenue of utilizing tunable electrified IL–electrode interfaces for selective sensing of molecules with a kinetic size resolution of 0.1 Å.