Low-Cost Hydrogen Sensor in the ppm Range with Purely Optical Readout

Abstract

Due to the changing global climate, the role of renewable energy sources is of increasing importance. Hydrogen can play an important role as an energy carrier in the transition from fossil fuels. However, to ensure safe operations, a highly reliable and sensitive hydrogen sensor is required for leakage detection. We present a sensor design with purely optical readout that reliably operates between 50 and 100,000 ppm. The building block of the sensor is a reactive sample that consists of a layered structure with palladium nanodisks as the top layer and changes its optical properties depending on the external hydrogen partial pressure. We use a fiber-coupled setup consisting of an LED, a sensor body containing the reactive sample, and a photodiode to probe and read out the reflectance of the sample. This allows separation of the explosive detection area from the operating electronics and thus comes with an inherent protection against hydrogen ignition by electronic malfunctions. Our results prove that this sensor design provides a large detection range, fast response times, and enhanced robustness against aging compared to conventional thin-film technologies. Especially, the simplicity, feasibility, and scalability of the presented approach yield a holistic approach for industrial hydrogen monitoring.

Thin Film and Nanostructured Pd-Based Materials for Optical H2 Sensors: A Review

“…Another family of CN materials are those that combine layers of thin films and arrays of isolated nanodiscs. These materials, referred to as plasmonic perfect-absorberbased H 2 optical sensors [92][93][94][95], exploit changes in the reflectance during hydrogenation/dehydrogenation [92]. An example structure of such a material comprises of an array of Pd nanodiscs that is placed on top of a dielectric spacer (MgF 2 ) while the bottom layer is a metallic film (e.g., Au), which plays the role of a mirror (Figure 11a).…”

Highly Sensitive H2 Sensors Based on Co3O4/PEI‐CNTs at Room Temperature

“…However, hydrogen gas is colorless, odorless, highly volatile, and flammable. Explosion is very easy to occur when hydrogen gas concentration exceeds 4% in dry air; therefore, safety has always been a big issue in hydrogen storage and use [5,6]. Developing a sensor for hydrogen gas is essential to monitor its amount for their applications in energy and environmental fields.…”

Fiber optic hydrogen sensor based on a Fabry–Perot interferometer with a fiber Bragg grating and a nanofilm

“…[11][12][13][14][15] After Liu et al experimentally demonstrated a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor with perfect absorption in the SPR structure, 16 many hydrogen sensors that use perfect absorption and SPR have been proposed. [17][18][19][20][21] Such optical hydrogen sensors with perfect absorption provide low insertion loss and high spectral contrast, which contribute to their high sensitivity and low detection limit. However, these sensors need bulky optical setups to ensure that the input and readout signals are properly coupled to optical detectors.…”