A Versatile Capacitive Sensing Platform for the Assessment of the Composition in Gas Mixtures
1
TNO, HTC25, 5656AE Eindhoven, The Netherlands
2
National Metrology Institute VTT MIKES, Tekniikantie 1, FI-02150 Espoo, Finland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Micromachines 2020, 11(2), 116; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11020116
Received: 15 December 2019
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Revised: 17 January 2020
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Accepted: 20 January 2020
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Published: 21 January 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MFHS 2019)
The energy market is facing a major transition, in which natural gas and renewable gasses will play an important role. However, changing gas sources and compositions will force the gas transporters, gas engine manufacturers, and gas grid operators to monitor the gas quality in a more intensive way. This leads to the need for lower cost, smaller, and easy to install gas quality sensors. A new approach is proposed in this study that is based on the chemical interactions of the various gas components and responsive layers applied to an array of capacitive interdigitated electrodes. For Liquid Natural Gas (LNG), containing a relative high concentration of higher hydrocarbons, an array of ten capacitive chips is proposed, that is sufficient to calculate the full composition, and can be used to calculate energy parameters, such as Wobbe Index, Calorific Value, and Methane Number. A first prototype was realized that was small enough to be inserted in low and medium pressure gas pipes and LNG engine fuel lines. Adding the pressure and temperature data to the chip readings enables the determination of the concentrations of the various alkanes, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, including small fluctuations in water vapor pressure. The sensitivity and selectivity of the new sensor is compared to a compact analyzer employing tunable filter infrared spectrometry.
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Keywords:
energy transition; gas composition sensor; capacitive sensor array; interdigitated electrodes; responsive coatings; tunable filter infrared spectrometer; LNG; biogas
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MDPI and ACS Style
Sweelssen, J.; Blokland, H.; Rajamäki, T.; Sarjonen, R.; Boersma, A. A Versatile Capacitive Sensing Platform for the Assessment of the Composition in Gas Mixtures. Micromachines 2020, 11, 116. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11020116
AMA Style
Sweelssen J, Blokland H, Rajamäki T, Sarjonen R, Boersma A. A Versatile Capacitive Sensing Platform for the Assessment of the Composition in Gas Mixtures. Micromachines. 2020; 11(2):116. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11020116
Chicago/Turabian StyleSweelssen, Jörgen, Huib Blokland, Timo Rajamäki, Risto Sarjonen, and Arjen Boersma. 2020. "A Versatile Capacitive Sensing Platform for the Assessment of the Composition in Gas Mixtures" Micromachines 11, no. 2: 116. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11020116
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