Design and Development of an Electronic Board for Supporting the Operation of Electrochemical Gas Sensors

Abstract

Air quality monitoring is performed by agencies using instrumentation based on extremely reliable technologies but characterized by high costs. An alternative gas sensing technology is the electrochemical gas sensor which, even though having a lower accuracy, offers some advantages, such as low costs and high miniaturization. Among the gas sensors designed for air quality monitoring, the most interesting are the ones based on electrochemical cells. To operate such sensors, it is necessary to have an electronic circuit typically implemented on electronic boards provided by the sensor manufacturer. The research described in this document regards the design and implementation of an electronic board to support the operation of the “B” series of the electrochemical gas sensors produced by Alphasense. This brand provides electronic boards that, on one side, are capable of offering excellent performances, but on the other side, are characterized by some limitations, such as the possibility of using only one sensor at a time. The experimental activities of our laboratory in the field of real-time air quality monitoring by using low-cost devices and technologies demand electronic boards to support the operation of such sensors having a higher grade of flexibility. To overcome this and other limitations, a new electronic board has been designed and implemented. In this document, its design and the implementation details are described.