Polymer Electrolyte-Based Ambient Temperature Oxygen Microsensor
sensors
Polymer Electrolyte-Based Ambient Temperature Oxygen Microsensor (LEW-TOPS-79)
Allows fire, fuel-leak, and personal-protection monitoring in a variety of environments
Overview
Innovators at NASA's Glenn Research Center have developed an ambient temperature oxygen microsensor that can be used in fuel-leak and fire-detection applications. Because the technology detects oxygen levels from 7-21% in nitrogen, it also enables environmental and personal health monitoring. Many existing ambient temperature oxygen sensors are optically based, hard to miniaturize, and involve large, complicated, and costly instrumentation. By contrast, the Glenn microsensor is small, simple to batch-fabricate, consumes little power, and operates in a wide humidity range. Originally developed for extravehicular activity for monitoring oxygen in spacesuits, Glenn's novel design is based on a Nafiontm polymer electrolyte and manufactured using state-of-the-art thin-film technologies. It combines an innovative use of metal oxide as a reference electrode with a unique sensor design that enables miniaturization and flexibility, for a multitude of personal health monitoring and environmental applications.
The Technology
Conventional ambient-temperature oxygen sensors are limited in various ways: optically based sensors can be expensive and challenging to manufacture; electrochemical cells with liquid electrolytes can have limited lifetimes and become leak sources; and both types of sensors are difficult to miniaturize. These problems are addressed with Glenn's novel ambient temperature oxygen microsensor, which is based on a Nafiontm polymer electrolyte, microfabricated using thin-film technologies. In the past, one drawback of Nafiontm film has been that it can lose conductivity when the moisture content in the film is too low, potentially affecting sensor operation. Glenn researchers devised a method to use certain salts to hold water molecules in the Nafiontm film structure at room temperature. The presence of these salts provides extra sites in the film to promote proton (H+) mobility, thus improving film conductivity and overall sensor performance, particularly in arid and high-temperature environments.
The innovative use of metal/metal oxide as the reference electrode enables miniaturization by eliminating the reference gas and sealing the reference electrode. The combination of interdigitized electrodes with the unique metal/metal oxide reference electrode permits sensor operation in either potentiometric or amperometric mode, as appropriate. In potentiometric mode, which measures voltage differences between working and reference electrodes in different gases, the voltage differences can be monitored with a voltmeter; however, the sensor itself does not need a power source. In room-temperature testing, the sensor achieved repeatable responses to 21 percent oxygen in nitrogen (using nitrogen as a baseline gas), and also detected oxygen from 7 to 21 percent, making Glenn's breakthrough technology usable for personal health monitoring as well as fire detection, fuel-leak detection, and environmental monitoring.
Benefits
- Flexible: Employs water-retaining agents to prevent the sensor from losing conductivity in dry environments
- Low-cost: Does not require expensive and complicated instrumentation
- Miniaturized: Uses batch fabrication processes to fabricate sensor electrodes, enabling small sensor size
- Versatile: Enables use of the sensor in potentiometric operation mode to save power
- Efficient: Uses little power and has relatively high sensor yield
Applications
- Health monitoring (e.g., personal, environmental)
- Medical devices (e.g., Hyperbaric chambers)
- Marine
- Mining
- Aerospace
Similar Results
Carbon Dioxide Gas Sensors
Current bulk or thick film solid electrolyte CO2 sensors are expensive, difficult to batch fabricate, and large in size. In contrast, this new amperometric, solid-state, oxide-based electrolyte CO2 microsensor is affordable, easy to fabricate, and is so small that it could easily be integrated onto a substrate the size of a postage stamp.
The basic composition of the sensor is identical to a previously designed NASA Glenn technology in which a solid electrolyte of Na3Zr2Si2PO12 is deposited between interdigitated electrodes on an alumina substrate and is covered by Na2CO3/BaCO3. Unlike its predecessor, however, this innovation includes an additional layer of nanocrystalline SnO2 sol gel, an electron donor type (N-type) semiconductor, on top of the Na2CO3/BaCO3 . This new layer provides a greater number of electrons for reduction reaction at the working electrode to detect CO2. As a result, overall performance is enhanced, and this new state-of-the-art sensor has the ability to operate at temperatures as low as 375°C. This low temperature capability significantly decreases the amount of power required to operate the sensor, opening the door to a multitude of new applications that were previously unattainable.
Advanced Hydrogen and Hydrocarbon Gas Sensors
In conjunction with academia and industry, NASA's Glenn Research Center has developed a range of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based and Silicon Carbide (SiC)-based microsensor technologies that are well-suited for many applications. The suite of technologies includes hydrogen and hydrocarbon leak detection sensors; emissions sensor arrays; and high-temperature contact pads for wire bond connections.
Currently used to protect astronauts on the International Space Station, the hydrogen and leak detection sensors have many Earth-based applications as well. They can function as a single-sensor unit or as part of a complete smart sensor system that includes multiple sensors, signal conditioning, power, and telemetry. The system can comprise sensors for hydrogen, hydrocarbons, oxygen, temperature, and pressure. The emissions sensor array features a gas-sensing structure that detects various combustion emission species (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxygen, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides) over a wide range of concentrations. In addition, the emissions sensor array remains highly sensitive and stable while providing gas detection at temperatures ranging from 450 to 600°C. These new sensors provide a combination of responsiveness and durability that offers great value for a wide range of applications and industries.
Robust Sensors Detect Material Ablation and Temperature Changes
Glenn's breakthrough technology introduces batch-fabricated, miniature sensors embedded and distributed over a large surface area of a material or product during the manufacturing process. The sensors can be utilized for test instrumentation or as an integrated in-situ monitoring system. This integrated manufacturing approach preserves the structural and mechanical system integrity by eliminating the antiquated plug-in approach, invasive machining, manual insertion, and gluing processes currently required to implant sensors into a material. The sensor ladder network of resistors and capacitors breaks down as result of the thermo-physical effects caused by temperature, shock, radiation, corrosion, or other reactions, causing a change in the electrical properties. A processor interprets these changes in the electrical properties and generates a high-resolution, large-area surface profile. The profile demonstrates the amount or rate of material deterioration and temperature change, and is used to optimize geometric structural design, develop materials, predict performance, and make decisions. These sensors play an important role as industries work to realize material performance and product design. This type of monitoring is ideal for infrastructures, nuclear enclosures, or any system susceptible to surface deterioration.
Inexpensive Microsensor Fabrication Process
Because chemical sensors are used in many aspects of space missions, NASA researchers are continually developing ever smaller and more robust sensors that can be manufactured inexpensively and in high quantities; e.g., in batches. Glenn has developed a way to inexpensively fabricate microsensors using a sacrificial template approach. A nanostructure, such as a carbon nanotube, serves as a template, which can then be coated with a high-temperature oxide material. The carbon nanotube can be burned off, or sacrificed, leaving only the metal oxide. The resulting structure provides the unique morphology and properties of the carbon nanotube, which are advantageous for sensing, along with the material durability and high-temperature sensing capabilities of the metal oxide. This technique increases the surface area available for sensing because both the interior and exterior of the resulting microsensor can be used for gas detection, significantly increasing performance.
The fabrication of these microsensors includes three major steps: (1) synthesis of the porous metal or metal oxide nanostructures using a sacrificial template, (2) deposition of the electrodes onto alumina substrates, and (3) alignment of the nanostructures between the electrodes. The invention has been demonstrated for methane detection at room temperature (using tin oxide, with carbon nanotubes as the sacrificial template). The microsensor offers low power consumption (no heating required), compact size, extremely low cost, and simple batch-fabrication.
Room temperature oxygen sensors
NASA Ames has developed very small-sized oxygen sensors made of a graphene and titanium dioxide (TiO2) hybrid material. With ultraviolet (UV) illumination, these sensors are capable of detecting oxygen (O2) gas at room temperature and at ambient pressure. The sensors are able to detect oxygen at concentrations ranging from about 0.2% to about 10% by volume under 365nm UV light, and at concentrations ranging from 0.4% to 20% by volume under short wave 254nm UV light. These sensors have fast response and recovery times and can also be used to detect ozone.
This unique room temperature O2 sensor provides significant advantages in O2 sensing applications, especially those applications where high operating temperature requirements cannot be met, or would result in inefficient manufacturing processes. Since graphene is not intrinsically responsive to O2, and TiO2 is not responsive to oxygen at room temperature, the materials are first synthesized as a hybrid material. The synthesized graphene- TiO2 hybrid material is then ultrasonicated and then drop-casted onto a series of Interdigitated Electrodes (IDE) to form the sensors.
Ultrasonication ensures effective charge transfer at the graphene- TiO2 interphase. The graphene and the titanium dioxide may be present in the composite material in different ratios to ensure optimal oxygen detection. It is the combination of graphene with TiO2 that yields a semiconducting material capable of O2 sensing at room-temperature operation.
