Volatile Organic Compound Optical Fiber Sensors: A Review

Volatile organic compound (VOC) detection is a topic of growing interest withapplications in diverse fields, ranging from environmental uses to the food or chemicalindustries. Optical fiber VOC sensors offering new and interesting properties whichovercame some of the inconveniences found on traditional gas sensors appeared over twodecades ago. Thanks to its minimum invasive nature and the advantages that optical fiberoffers such as light weight, passive nature, low attenuation and the possibility ofmultiplexing, among others, these sensors are a real alternative to electronic ones inelectrically noisy environments where electronic sensors cannot operate correctly. In thepresent work, a classification of these devices has been made according to the sensingmechanism and taking also into account the sensing materials or the different methods offabrication. In addition, some solutions already implemented for the detection of VOCsusing optical fiber sensors will be described with detail.