Wearable chemical gas sensors with color changeable functional dyes for detection of organophosphorus nerve agents

Wearable military chemical gas sensors were realized using 19 types of color-changeable functional dyes with great aggregative characteristics, and the optimal wearable sensor with the best detection performance was selected. The wearable sensor was designed to demonstrate color change, which exhibited high sensitivity to low concentrations of chemical warfare agent vapors at room temperature. The dyes were applied to textile substrates (cotton fabrics) of the wearable chemical gas sensors, and their sensing properties, performance, and mechanisms were examined for an organophosphorus simulant of nerve agents, dimethyl methyl phosphonate (DMMP). A color difference of almost 5 was obtained at 3 ppm within 10 min, and the spectrum exhibited hypsochromic and hyperchromic shifts. The sensing mechanism was found to depend on solvatochromism, aggregative characteristics of the dye molecules, and the adsorption amount of DMMP vapor on textile substrates. In addition, the reusability of the wearable sensor was tested for ten repeat cycles.