Optimization of the hygrosensitive response characteristics of a polyacrylate humidity sensor using halloysite nanotubes

Abstract

Moisture-sensitive materials need to meet the technical requirements of low power consumption, high precision and integratability, which are crucial for the development of new advanced moisture-sensitive devices and humidity sensor technologies. In this work, polyacrylates (PAC) were modified with nano halloysite powders (HNTs) to prepare resistive halloysite/polyacrylate composite moisture-sensitive films (PAC/HNTs) with excellent performances. Compared with the humidity-sensitive performance of PAC, the response time was reduced from 5 s to 0.9 s in the humidity range of 11–96% RH. Particularly, in the 30–96% RH humidity range, the average power consumption of the device was 88.41 μW and exhibited excellent linearity (R = −0.99), low wet hysteresis (5.04% RH), and excellent thermal and long-term stability. Thus, PAC/HNTs hold significant potential in the development of new humidity-sensitive devices and sensors with fast response, low power consumption, high accuracy and integratability.