Self-test procedures for gas sensors embedded in microreactor systems

Metal oxide (MOX) gas sensors sensitively respond to a wide variety of combustible, explosive and poisonous gases. However, due to the lack of a built-in self-test capability, MOX gas sensors have not yet been able to penetrate safety-critical applications. In the present work we report on gas sensing experiments performed on MOX gas sensors embedded in ceramic micro-reaction chambers. With the help of an external micro-pump, such systems can be operated in a periodic manner alternating between flow and no-flow conditions, thus allowing repetitive measurements of the sensor resistances under clean air, R0 , and under gas exposure, Rgas , to be obtained, even under field conditions. With these pairs of resistance values, eventual drifts in the sensor baseline resistance can be detected and drift-corrected values of the relative resistance response Resp=(R0−Rgas)/R0 can be determined. Residual poisoning-induced changes in the relative resistance response can be detected by reference to humidity measurements taken with room-temperature-operated capacitive humidity sensors which are insensitive to the poisoning processes operative on heated MOX gas sensors