Metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors in environmental monitoring

Metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors in environmental monitoring 

BINIONS, Queen Mary, University of London, UK and A. J. T. NAIK, University College London, UK 

Key words metal oxide semiconductors, gas sensors, environmental 

Environmental sustainability is a pressing problem at the current time due to issues such as climate change, pollution and disturbances associated with biodiversity. A wide variety of organisations, such as governments, universities and industry, are working at the forefront of scientific and technological research to find solutions to these problems. 

The use of analytical instruments to detect, analyze and rate the emissions has been a convention in this field (Rock et ai, 2008 Yamazoe and Miura, 1995) examples include instruments such as infra-red (IR) spectroscopy, ultraviolet (UV) absorption, chemiluminescence (Yamazoe and Miura, 1995) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) (James et al, 2005). These analytical techniques are associated with good limits of detection and fast response times (Akbar et al., 2006 Szabo et aL, 2003) however, they do suffer from various disadvantages - such as maintenance requirements, as well as weight and portability issues (Akbar et aL, 2006). They tend to be expensive and therefore are unsuited for tn-situ analysis or continuous operation (Rock et al, 2008). Data gathering may also be time-consuming with these methods (Yamazoe and Miura, 1995), and the requirement for trained personnel to utilise the instruments and conduct analysis also limits their effectiveness (James et al, 2005). 

---

Eine GE, Cavanagh LM, Afonja A, Binions R (2010) Metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors in environmental monitoring. Sensors 10 5469-5502... 

---