The main aim of this project is to design and fabricate a proof-of-concept innovative hydrogen gas sensor and supporting system that is able to tackle the grand challenge of effectively detecting hydrogen in real-world conditions for safety assurance and hydrogen productivity measurement. This project will contribute to advancement of the development and commercialisation of effective nanomaterial-enabled hydrogen sensors to address the key barriers to their widespread adoption of such effective sensors. Specifically, this project will focus on investigating the requirements for the field deployment of such sensors by evaluating the effectiveness and accuracy of the sensors in detecting hydrogen at low temperatures (at or near room temperature) under varying environmental conditions (temperature and humidity). The project’s goal is to bridge the gap between our novel hydrogen sensors recently developed in controlled laboratory environments and practical utilisation in real-life applications. This will involve ensuring that the sensors meet the requirements for reliability, sensitivity, selectivity, long-term stability, durability and cost-effectiveness in industrial and commercial settings. Many different types of hydrogen gas sensors have been proposed in the literature, while a number of technologies have advanced to commercial viability as reported in our paper.
Hydrogen sensors are available in a range of form factors suited to particular applications. These range from handheld devices used by plant workers to monitor for gas hazards during work (particularly in confined spaces) through to fixed installations for process monitoring. Across such a broad range of environmental conditions – maintaining accuracy and long-term reliability is challenging, particularly when environmental conditions may be unstable and contaminant compounds are present. It is therefore unsurprising that the development of hydrogen sensors has remained an active area of research.
Hydrogen gas sensors rely upon a limited set of physio-chemical interactions to perform sensing, each with associated advantages and drawbacks. Although a range of methods are available for detection and quantisation of hydrogen, commercially available devices tend to focus on those methods that are economic, scalable, and well-established – even if such characteristics come at the cost of sensitivity or selectivity. To meet the demands of a future hydrogen economy however, ongoing research is aimed at continuously improving sensitivity, selectivity, response time and reliability in addition to reducing sensor size, cost and power consumption.
Partners: Swinburne University of Technology, The State of Queensland acting through the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning
Project Leader: Dr. Mahnaz Shafiei
Duration: 12 Months