A capacitive humidity sensor is presented for moisture detection at room temperature. The sensor is fabricated by depositing multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on one of the stainless-steel substrates. When compared to a sensor without CNTs, a CNT-enhanced sensor has an increase of 60-200 percent in capacitance response when the humidity is under 70 percent relative humidity (RH), and 300-3000 percent if the RH level goes over 70 percent. The performance is comparable to a commercial sensor from Honeywell, which is used as a benchmark throughout the experiments. Our results demonstrate that nano-materials like MWCNTs can naturally form networks of porous nano-structures, which can potentially realize a miniature capacitive humidity sensor with a higher sensitivity. The gain in performance is attributed to the capillary condensation effect.
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