Performance Improvement of Hydrogen Sensors in Support of Greening the Future of Energy

Hydrogen has the greatest probability to leak. So, hydrogen detection becomes more challenging than other gases for safety considerations. In this study, Electro-thermal simulation and transient analysis for hydrogen leakage semiconductor sensor were performed. The heater coil and the sensitive layer of the sensor are the main investigated parts. Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis used to compare the electro-thermal properties of two geometrical heater coils and different materials for sensitive layer. The temperature of the simulated sensors was analysed considering the natural convection and radiation, ambient temperature variation from 0-50°C, varying heater coil materials, varying dimensions, and varying sensitive layer materials. Optimization for the heater coil was performed by comparing the maximum surface temperature, power consumption, and the time response for both sensor designs by COMSOL 4.3. The simulated results confirmed that the nickel-chrome material for the heater needs minimum power consumption of 82% lower than Pt. But it has longer response time, which is 37 seconds (240% of Pt response time) at 1V power supply. Also, Comparing SnO2 and ZnO sensitive materials, SnO2 material has a response time lower than ZnO by 28% in helical based sensor and 31% in meander one. Finally, the helical based sensor needs power less than meander one by 40% to achieve the 350°C surface temperature. In other words, helical based sensor generates higher surface temperature by 36% from the meander one at the same power consumption (500mW power supply). DOI: 10.29011/ 2577-2260.100039