Development of Metal Oxide Nanostructure-based Optical Sensors for Fossil Fuel Derived Gases Measurement at High Temperature

Abstract

This final technical report details research works performed supported by a Department of Energy grant (DE-FE0003859), which was awarded under the University Coal Research Program administrated by National Energy Technology Laboratory. This research program studied high temperature fiber sensor for harsh environment applications. It developed two fiber optical sensor platform technology including regenerative fiber Bragg grating sensors and distributed fiber optical sensing based on Rayleigh backscattering optical frequency domain reflectometry. Through the studies of chemical and thermal regenerative techniques for fiber Bragg grating (FBG) fabrication, high-temperature stable FBG sensors were successfully developed and fabricated in air-hole microstructured fibers, high-attenuation fibers, rare-earth doped fibers, and standard telecommunication fibers. By optimizing the laser processing and thermal annealing procedures, fiber grating sensors with stable performance up to 1100oC have been developed. Using these temperature-stable FBG gratings as sensor platform, fiber optical flow, temperature, pressure, and chemical sensors have been developed to operate at high temperatures up to 800oC. Through the integration of on-fiber functional coating, the use of application-specific air-hole microstructural fiber, and application of active fiber sensing scheme, distributed fiber sensor for temperature, pressure, flow, liquid level, and chemical sensing have been demonstrated with high spatial resolution (1-cm or better) with wide temperature ranges. These include the demonstration of 1) liquid level sensing from 77K to the room temperature, pressure/temperature sensing more » from the room temperature to 800C and from the 15psi to 2000 psi, and hydrogen concentration measurement from 0.2% to 10% with temperature ranges from the room temperature to 700C. Optical sensors developed by this program has broken several technical records including flow sensors with the highest operation temperature up to 750oC, first distributed chemical measurements at the record high temperature up to 700oC, first distributed pressure measurement at the record high temperature up to 800oC, and the fiber laser sensors with the record high operation temperature up to 700oC. The research performed by this program dramatically expand the functionality, adaptability, and applicability of distributed fiber optical sensors with potential applications in a number of high-temperature energy systems such as fossil-fuel power generation, high-temperature fuel cell applications, and potential for nuclear energy systems. « less