Nanoporous anodic alumina based sensor to discriminate alcohol mixtures

What is it about?

Methanol and ethanol have similar properties with the same odor and color, but only with a slight change in their refractive index. We developed a gold-coated nanoporous anodic alumina-based sensor that can distinguish between different kinds of alcohols such as methanol and ethanol due to this slight difference in the refractive index. The wavelength shift of the Fabry-Perot resonating modes formed between the gold-coated nanoporous alumina surface and the aluminum on the other side forms the basis of the sensor. To detect small quantities of methanol mixed in ethanol, we infiltrated the alcohol mixtures inside the nanoporous volume of gold-coated anodic alumina and observed the spectral location of the Fabry-Perot modes in the reflected signal. Using this sensor, we could successfully detect up to 5% - 10% of methanol in the methanol-ethanol mixture.

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