Thin-Film Liquid Conductivity Sensor

Electrolytic conductivity measurements have extensive applications in chemical and biological processes, such as water purification, electroplating, and human blood or urea analysis. However, conventional conductivity measurement methods with electrodes or inductive devices without electrodes have poor spatial resolution.

This poor spatial resolution causes a great demand for microscale sensors for small volume sample analysis and in vivo monitoring for many applications like medical and biological measurements. Problematically, there are issues that still render such microscale sensors inaccurate for some problems and keep them from being robust and low-cost.

Mark Shannon of the University of Illinois is working to fabricate the next generation of thin-film conductivity sensors for science and industry. Shannon will redesign the micro-conductivity sensors developed in previous research, employing recent advancements in fabrication technologies, develop electronic circuitry to drive the sensor and measure the output, and characterize and test the sensors and circuits to ready them for beta testing in industry.

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