Hydrogen Flow & Gas properties sensing

MEMS based Sensor

With the effects of climate change alternate fuel sources are the need of the day and hydrogen has become a viable option as it can deliver or store a tremendous amount of energy. Hydrogen is being used in fuel cells to generate electricity, or power and heat. In order to aid in this transition to renewable energy, we are developing a MEMS based hydrogen flow and Gas properties sensor.

With the EU countries having created a comprehensive plan to reduce their Carbon footprints and Embarking on a Journey of embracing Hydrogen energy there still remains the problem of Robust solutions for Hydrogen Flow and Gas properties sensing. Often the solutions offered are bulky and need high power consumption.

What we wish to offer is a single module which gives hydrogen flow rate and hydrogen gas concentration at high resolution & sensitivity in relevant gas mixtures in relevant pressure ranges. The sensors are based on MEMS technology that enables the sensors to be in a small package, less power hungry and at lower cost.

Our sensors have long-term stability, precision, and reliability. This sensor bundle consists of a Gas flow sensor, a gas properties sensor, temperature and pressure sensor to help in the proper calculation of the flow and gas concentration.

The gas concentration sensor is developed with self-supporting silicon micro-wires that are freely suspended as microscopic bars in the headspace to be measured. A middle wire is con-figured as heater; two detector wires at different distances to the middle wire are configured as temperature sensors. At sinusoidal heat output, a sinusoidal progression of the sensor signals occurs, which is highly dependent on the thermal properties of the gas that surrounds the wires.

This system may be utilized in various applications for example in Fuel Cells where a reduction of hydrogen concentration can cause irreparable damage to the fuel cell or in the case of leakage detection where a hydrogen concentration of 4% can lead to catastrophic situations.