Micromodeling of gas sensing mechanism

• Main Author: Low, Daniel Ah Boey.
• Other Authors: Birlarsekaran
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Electronic circuits
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/4198
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

With the development of engineering industry, combustible and toxic gases monitoring and sensing are increasingly required by society for healthy environmental conditions, and safety reasons. Semiconducting gas sensors provide an economic and attractive solution to many of these monitoring problems. Semiconducting gas sensors rely on changes of conductance induced by adsorption of gases and by subsequent surface reactions. The conduction model based on Schottky potential barrier at grain boundary is the widely accepted mechanism. In situations where a mixture of two or more gases are present the application of this model is not understood. The analysis indicates that the conductance model for a gas mixture follows closely the Schottky model. It is found that the barrier potential is a complex function of the reacting gases.