A measurement system designed for the development
of novel conductometric gas sensors and of new gas sensing
materials is described. The system allows to simultaneously
characterize up to 8 sensors. Prototype sensors can be easily
realized thanks to an ad hoc structure based on an alumina
substrate equipped with electrodes, a heater and an accurate
temperature sensor, on this structure the studied material can be
deposited by screen printing, spin coating or dip coating. The
system is designed to study the behavior of the sensors by
accurately setting the operating conditions in terms of chemical
environment composition, gas flow, humidity and temperature.
The system is fully programmable and it individually controls the
film temperatures or measures them with a resolution lower than
0.1 °C. Both chemical transients and thermal transients can be
studied. These features make the system suitable for determining
the principal performance indexes of a gas sensing device (e.g.,
sensitivity, stability, selectivity, response/recovery times, etc.) as
functions of various combinations of measurement conditions
(e.g., gas concentrations, temperature, humidity, flow). The
proposed measurement system will find also useful applications
in sensor model validation
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.