Humidity and temperature effects on the response to ethylene of an amperometric sensor utilizing a gold‐nafion electrode

The response to ethylene of chemically deposited gold-Nafion electrodes was found to increase as the real surface area of the electrode was increased. However, humidity was found to lower the sensitivity of the electrode to ethylene. For larger electrode surface areas the humidity dependence of the sensor response to ethylene was found to increase. As well as the surface area, the method used to fabricate the gold-Nafion electrode strongly influenced the humidity dependence. The response to ethylene on a vapor deposited electrode showed only a negligible humidity influence which may make this method more suitable for the fabrication of electrodes. The temperature dependence, for both chemically and vapor deposited electrodes, was found to be a 1% decrease in response to ethylene per °C decrease in temperature.