Scientists develop printable water sensor
Tuesday, March 5, 2019 - 08:10
in Physics & Chemistry
A new, versatile plastic-composite sensor can detect tiny amounts of water. The 3-D printable material, developed by a Spanish-Israeli team of scientists, is cheap, flexible and non-toxic and changes its colour from purple to blue in wet conditions. The researchers, led by Pilar Amo-Ochoa from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), used DESY's X-ray light source PETRA III to understand the structural changes within the material that are triggered by water and lead to the observed colour change. The development opens the door to the generation of a family of new 3-D printable functional materials. The study is published in Advanced Functional Materials.