Temperature Modulation of a Catalytic Gas Sensor

The use of catalytic gas sensors usually offers low selectivity, only based on their different sensitivities for various gases due to their different heats of reaction. Furthermore, the identification of the gas present is not possible, which leads to possible misinterpretation of the sensor signals. The use of micro-machined catalytic gas sensors offers great advantages regarding the response time, which allows advanced analysis of the sensor response. By using temperature modulation, additional information about the gas characteristics can be measured and drift effects caused by material shifting or environmental temperature changes can be avoided. In this work a miniaturized catalytic gas sensor which offers a very short response time (<150 ms) was developed. Operation with modulated temperature allows analysis of the signal spectrum with advanced information content, based on the Arrhenius approach. Therefore, a high-precise electronic device was developed, since theory shows that harmonics induced by the electronics must be avoided to generate a comprehensible signal.