Response characterization of a fiber optic sensor array with dye-coated planar waveguide for detection of volatile organic compounds

Vacuum Based Gas Sensing Material Characterization System for Precise and Simultaneous Measurement of Optical and Electrical Responses

Gas sensing performance characterization systems are essential for the research and development of gas sensing materials and devices. Although existing systems are almost completely automatically operated, the accuracies of gas concentration control and of pressure control and the ability to simultaneously detect different sensor signals still require improvement. In this study, a high-precision gas sensing material characterization system is developed based on vacuum technology, with the objective of enabling the precise and simultaneous measurement of electrical responses. Because of the implementation of vacuum technology, the gas concentration control accuracy is improved more than 1600 times, whereas the pressure of the test ambient condition can be precisely adjusted between vacuum and 1.2 bar. The vacuum-assisted gas-exchanging mechanism also enables the sensor response time to be determined more accurately. The system is capable of performing sensitivity, selectivity, and stability tests and can control the ambient relative humidity in a precise manner. More importantly, the levels of performance of three different optical signal measurement set-ups were investigated and compared in terms of detection range, linearity, noise, and response time, based on which of their scopes of application were proposed. Finally, single-period and cyclical tests were performed to examine the ability of the system to detect optical and electrical responses simultaneously, both at a single wavelength and in a spectral region.

Recent Progress in the Abatement of Hazardous Pollutants Using Photocatalytic TiO2-Based Building Materials

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) has been extensively investigated in interdisciplinary research (such as catalysis, energy, environment, health, etc.) owing to its attractive physico-chemical properties, abundant nature, chemical/environmental stability, low-cost manufacturing, low toxicity, etc. Over time, TiO2-incorporated building/construction materials have been utilized for mitigating potential problems related to the environment and human health issues. However, there are challenges with regards to photocatalytic efficiency improvements, lab to industrial scaling up, and commercial product production. Several innovative approaches/strategies have been evolved towards TiO2 modification with the focus of improving its photocatalytic efficiency. Taking these aspects into consideration, research has focused on the utilization of many of these advanced TiO2 materials towards the development of construction materials such as concrete, mortar, pavements, paints, etc. This topical review focuses explicitly on capturing and highlighting research advancements in the last five years (mainly) (2014-2019) on the utilization of various modified TiO2 materials for the development of practical photocatalytic building materials (PBM). We briefly summarize the prospective applications of TiO2-based building materials (cement, mortar, concretes, paints, coating, etc.) with relevance to the removal of outdoor/indoor NOx and volatile organic compounds, self-cleaning of the surfaces, etc. As a concluding remark, we outline the challenges and make recommendations for the future outlook of further investigations and developments in this prosperous area.

Acoustic Sensors Based on Amino-Functionalized Nanoparticles to Detect Volatile Organic Solvents

Love-wave gas sensors based on surface functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles has been developed in this research. Amino-terminated iron oxide nanoparticles were deposited, by a spin coating technique, onto the surface of Love-wave sensors, as a very reproducible gas-sensing layer. The gases tested were organic solvents, such as butanol, isopropanol, toluene and xylene, for a wide and low concentration range, obtaining great responses, fast response times of a few minutes (the time at which the device produced a signal change equal to 90%), good reproducibilities, and different responses for each detected solvent. The estimated limits of detection obtained have been very low for each detected compound, about 1 ppm for butanol, 12 ppm for isopropanol, 3 ppm for toluene and 0.5 ppm for xylene. Therefore, it is demonstrated that this type of acoustic wave sensor, with surface amino-functionalized nanoparticles, is a good alternative to those ones functionalized with metal nanoparticles, which result very expensive sensors to achieve worse results.

A Portable Array-Type Optical Fiber Sensing Instrument for Real-Time Gas Detection

A novel optical fiber array-type of sensing instrument with temperature compensation for real-time detection was developed to measure oxygen, carbon dioxide, and ammonia simultaneously. The proposed instrument is multi-sensing array integrated with real-time measurement module for portable applications. The sensing optical fibers were etched and polished before coating to increase sensitivities. The ammonia and temperature sensors were each composed of a dye-coated single-mode fiber with constructing a fiber Bragg grating and a long-period filter grating for detecting light intensity. Both carbon dioxide and oxygen sensing structures use multimode fibers where 1-hydroxy-3,6,8-pyrene trisulfonic acid trisodium salt is coated for carbon dioxide sensing and Tris(2,2′-bipyridyl) dichlororuthenium(II) hexahydrate and Tris(bipyridine)ruthenium(II) chloride are coated for oxygen sensing. Gas-induced fluorescent light intensity variation was applied to detect gas concentration. The portable gas sensing array was set up by integrating with photo-electronic measurement modules and a human-machine interface to detect gases in real time. The measured data have been processed using piecewise-linear method. The sensitivity of the oxygen sensor were 1.54%/V and 9.62%/V for concentrations less than 1.5% and for concentrations between 1.5% and 6%, respectively. The sensitivity of the carbon dioxide sensor were 8.33%/V and 9.62%/V for concentrations less than 2% and for concentrations between 2% and 5%, respectively. For the ammonia sensor, the sensitivity was 27.78%/V, while ammonia concentration was less than 2%.

Research on High Sensitive D-Shaped FBG Hydrogen Sensors in Power Transformer Oil

Dissolved hydrogen is a symbol gas decomposed by power transformer oil for electrical faults such as overheat or partial discharges. A novel D-shaped fiber Bragg grating (D-FBG) sensor is herein proposed and was fabricated with magnetron sputtering to measure the dissolved hydrogen concentration in power transformer oil in this paper. Different from the RI (refractive index)-based effect, D-FBG in this case is sensitive to curvature caused by stress from sensing coating, leading to Bragg wavelength shifts accordingly. The relationship between the D-FBG wavelength shift and dissolved hydrogen concentration in oil was measured experimentally in the laboratory. The detected sensitivity could be as high as 1.96 μL/L at every 1-pm wavelength shift. The results proved that a simple, polished FBG-based hydrogen sensor provides a linear measuring characteristic in the range of low hydrogen concentrations in transformer oil. Moreover, the stable hydrogen sensing performance was investigated by X-ray diffraction analysis.

A magnonic gas sensor based on magnetic nanoparticles

In this paper, we propose an innovative, simple and inexpensive gas sensor based on the variation in the magnetic properties of nanoparticles due to their interaction with gases. To measure the nanoparticle response a magnetostatic spin wave (MSW) tunable oscillator has been developed using an yttrium iron garnet (YIG) epitaxial thin film as a delay line (DL). The sensor has been prepared by coating a uniform layer of CuFe2O4 nanoparticles on the YIG film. The unperturbed frequency of the oscillator is determined by a bias magnetic field, which is applied parallel to the YIG film and perpendicularly to the wave propagation direction. In this device, the total bias magnetic field is the superposition of the field of a permanent magnet and the field associated with the layer of magnetic nanoparticles. The perturbation produced in the magnetic properties of the nanoparticle layer due to its interaction with gases induces a frequency shift in the oscillator, allowing the detection of low concentrations of gases. In order to demonstrate the ability of the sensor to detect gases, it has been tested with organic volatile compounds (VOCs) which have harmful effects on human health, such as dimethylformamide, isopropanol and ethanol, or the aromatic hydrocarbons like benzene, toluene and xylene more commonly known by its abbreviation (BTX). All of these were detected with high sensitivity, short response time, and good reproducibility.