Advances in Next Generation Hydrogen Sensor: Meeting Needs for the 21st Century

Hydrogen has been widely used in many applications from aerospace and transportation to fuel cells and satellite power supply. Although hydrogen is not toxic, Hydrogen has a very broad flammability range—a 4 percent to 74 percent concentration in air can lead to explosion in the presence of heat sources. Thus, hydrogen monitoring is essential for the safe use of hydrogen in hydrogen production and transportation, and all hydrogen-based applications. In addition, the increased use of hydrogen as clean fuel in energy such as fuel cells could lead to significant hydrogen emission into the atmosphere. Hydrogen could impact the lifetime of greenhouse gases, namely methane, ozone, and water vapor, indirectly contributing to the increase of the Earth’s temperature in the near-term. However, current hydrogen sensors are not as user-friendly, and the sensing materials can degrade gradually, and the sensing response is also temperature sensitive, and the sensitivity needs improvement. This presentation will show a miniaturized and low cost and low power electrochemical hydrogen sensor that is demonstrated to provide real time and continuous sensing hydrogen with high sensitivity and selectivity. Our hydrogen sensor can sensitively detect hydrogen in sub-ppb-level continuously in a quantitative way and maintaining strong reliability under both nitrogen and ambient conditions. The sensor is very selective to hydrogen in the presence of other ambient interference gases and works well under a broad range of environmental conditions. The excellent analytical performance is the result of the uniquely interface reactions of hydrogen at the catalytic electrode material and robust ionic liquid electrolyte interface. The lifetime of the sensor is long because the innovative sensing chemistry is reversible that provides high sensitivity and specificity for hydrogen sensing, and all the sensing materials are stable at harsh environmental conditions.