Resistive Hydrogen Sensors Based on Nanostructured Metals and Metal Alloys

Abstract

Hydrogen (H-2), as a renewable energy source, has numerous applications such as chemical production, fuel cell technology, rocket engines, fuel for cars etc. The detection of H-2 is so important in safety issue due to the flammable and explosive properties of H-2 gas, in a H-2 source for leak detection and in H-2 production process because of real-time quantitative analysis of production. This paper reviews resistive type H-2 sensor based on palladium (Pd), platinum (Pt) and their alloy nano-structures in the forms of thin films, nanoporous films, nanowires, nanoparticles, nanotubes, etc. The sensing mechanism of the nanostructured Pd and Pt resistive sensor is discussed in separated section. Nanostructured Pd sensors show a decrease or an increase in their resistance towards H-2 gas depending on continuity of the nanostructure and will be examined in two parts: discontinuous (nano-gap based) and continuous Pd and Pd alloy nanostructure sensors. On the contrary to Pd nanostructure sensor, nanostructured Pt sensors require oxygen (O-2) to operate. There are limited numbers of publications about nanostructured Pt and Pt alloy sensors, so further investigation are needed to well understand sensing mechanism of the Pt sensors.