Stabilized zirconia-based solid state electrochemical gas sensor coupled with CdTiO3 for acetylene detection

Abstract

It is important to assess the running state of power transformer by monitoring the acetylene (C2H2) content. In this work, we fabricated solid-state electrochemical C2H2 gas sensors based on yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) as a solid electrolyte and MTiO3 (M: Cd, Ni and Co) as sensing electrodes (SEs) synthesized by a simple sol-gel method. Comparing the response values, the sensor based on CdTiO3-SE exhibited a higher sensing signal of −126 mV to 100 ppm C2H2 than the others and the low detection limit of C2H2 even reached 500 ppb at 550℃. In addition, the ΔV of the developed sensor tended to negatively linearly vary with the concentration logarithm of C2H2 in the range of 0.5–5 ppm and 5–100 ppm at 550℃ with sensitivities of -8 and −91 mV/decade, respectively. The present sensing device also possessed an excellent acetylene detecting capability with excellent selectivity, reproducibility, and high temperature stability for 30 days, indicating a promising candidate in the effective detection of C2H2. In addition, the sensing behavior of the sensor was further demonstrated using polarization curves and electrochemical impedance measurements.