Wireless gas detection with a smartphone via rf communication

Chemical sensing is of critical importance to human health, safety, and security, yet it is not broadly implemented because existing sensors often require trained personnel, expensive and bulky equipment, and have large power requirements. This study reports the development of a smartphone-based sensing strategy that employs chemiresponsive nanomaterials integrated into the circuitry of commercial near-field communication tags to achieve non-line-of-sight, portable, and inexpensive detection and discrimination of gas-phase chemicals (e.g., ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, cyclohexanone, and water) at part-per-thousand and part-per-million concentrations.