A Simple and Efficient Formaldehyde Detection Technique Using Poly Ethylene Glycol Modified Quartz Crystal Microbalance Sensor

Detection of formaldehyde is extremely important considering its detrimental health hazards. It is extensively used as a potent preservative in different consumables like mushrooms, fish, etc. Although there are several methods to detect formaldehyde, developing a robust and accurate technique is always challenging. Here in, a reliable and accurate quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) based formaldehyde detection technique is presented where polyethylene glycol (PEG-400) is used as the prime sensing material. The developed sensor has achieved a wide linear detection range of (5-600 parts per million) with a sensitivity of 0.112 Hz/ppm and a linear correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.946. The lowest detection limit of Formaldehyde was 3.95ppm. The performance of the developed sensor was assessed for different samples of mushrooms which yielded about 99.61% accuracy in the predicted concentrations of formaldehyde using PCR analysis.