Resistive oxygen gas sensors for harsh environments.

Resistive oxygen sensors are an inexpensive alternative to the classical potentiometric zirconia oxygen sensor, especially for use in harsh environments and at temperatures of several hundred °C or even higher. This device-oriented paper gives a historical overview on the development of these sensor materials. It focuses especially on approaches to obtain a temperature independent behavior. It is shown that although in the past 40 years there have always been several research groups working concurrently with resistive oxygen sensors, novel ideas continue to emerge today with respect to improvements of the sensor response time, the temperature dependence, the long-term stability or the manufacture of the devices themselves using novel techniques for the sensitive films. Materials that are the focus of this review are metal oxides; especially titania, titanates, and ceria-based formulations.

Planar zeolite film-based potentiometric gas sensors manufactured by a combined thick-film and electroplating technique.

Zeolites are promising materials in the field of gas sensors. In this technology-oriented paper, a planar setup for potentiometric hydrocarbon and hydrogen gas sensors using zeolites as ionic sodium conductors is presented, in which the Pt-loaded Na-ZSM-5 zeolite is applied using a thick-film technique between two interdigitated gold electrodes and one of them is selectively covered for the first time by an electroplated chromium oxide film. The influence of the sensor temperature, the type of hydrocarbons, the zeolite film thickness, and the chromium oxide film thickness is investigated. The influence of the zeolite on the sensor response is briefly discussed in the light of studies dealing with zeolites as selectivity-enhancing cover layers.

Determination of the NOx loading of an automotive lean NOx trap by directly monitoring the electrical properties of the catalyst material itself.

Recently, it has been shown that the degree of loading of several types of automotive exhaust aftertreatment devices can be directly monitored in situ and in a contactless way by a microwave-based method. The goal of this study was to clarify whether this method can also be applied to NOx storage and reduction catalysts (lean NOx traps) in order to obtain further knowledge about the reactions occurring in the catalyst and to compare the results with those obtained by wirebound NOx loading sensors. It is shown that both methods are able to detect the different catalyst loading states. However, the sensitivity of the microwave-based method turned out to be small compared to that previously observed for other exhaust aftertreatment devices. This may limit the practical applicability of the microwave-based NOx loading detection in lean NOx traps.

Zeolite-based Impedimetric Gas Sensor Device in Low-cost Technology for Hydrocarbon Gas Detection.

Due to increasing environmental concerns the need for inexpensive selective gas sensors is increasing. This work deals with transferring a novel zeolite-based impedimetric hydrocarbon gas sensor principle, which has been originally manufactured in a costly combination of photolithography, thin-film processes, and thick-film processes to a lowcost technology comprising only thick-film processes and one electroplating step. The sensing effect is based on a thin chromium oxide layer between the interdigital electrodes and a Pt-loaded ZSM-5 zeolite film. When hydrocarbons are present in the sensor ambient, the electrical sensor impedance increases strongly and selectively. In the present work, the chromium oxide film is electroplated on Au screen-printed interdigital electrodes and then oxidized to Cr2O3. The electrode area is covered with the screen-printed zeolite. The sensor device is self-heated utilizing a planar platinum heater on the backside. The best sensor performance is obtained at a frequency of 3 Hz at around 350 °C. The good selectivity of the original sensor setup could be confirmed, but a strong cross-sensitivity to ammonia occurs, which might prohibit its original intention for use in automotive exhausts.