Next-Generation Gas Sensing Technologies for Early Fire Warning and Clean Energy Safety

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to this Special Issue of Fire, which focuses on the critical role of advanced gas sensing technologies in enhancing fire safety and clean energy systems.

Early and accurate fire detection is of great importance for the safeguarding of human life, property, and the environment. Conventional smoke detectors exhibit limitations in terms of response speed, false alarm rates, and sensitivity to smoldering fires or incomplete combustion. Concurrently, the global transition of traditional energy towards clean energy sources has introduced new safety challenges (e.g., hydrogen, lithium batteries, and natural gas), which necessitates significant evolution in both the methodologies and scenarios for early hazard detection and identification. Among the multitude of detection techniques, gas sensing technology presented a revolutionary solution for ultra-early fire warning and energy safety by identifying the characteristic gases emitted in the incipient stages of fire (e.g., carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), volatile organic compounds (VOCs)) or detecting leakage gases (e.g., hydrogen (H₂), alkanes, ammonia (NH₃)) within clean energy systems. Notably, the recent convergence of nanotechnology, Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) has catalyzed the development of a new generation of high-performance, low-power, and intelligent gas sensors, thereby driving a paradigm shift in the field of fire safety detection and early warning.

This Special Issue aims to compile cutting-edge advances and comprehensive reviews in the field of gas sensing (at least 10 papers), with a particular focus on innovative applications in early fire detection and safety assurance for clean energy systems. The topic is highly aligned with the scope of the journal Fire, which encompasses fire science, fire dynamics, combustion processes, detection systems, and related safety engineering. We are committed to building an interdisciplinary communication platform to facilitate dialogue among scholars in materials science, chemistry, electrical engineering and fire safety engineering, thereby providing cutting-edge scientific insights and technical solutions to address the current critical safety challenges.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Novel sensing materials and sensor designs (e.g., MOS, 2D materials, MOFs, polymer composites).
• Miniaturized and low-power gas sensors for the identification of fire-related signature gases (building, electrical, gas infrastructure, and etc.).
• Specialized gas sensing technologies for clean energy applications (hydrogen energy, lithium battery energy storage systems, and etc.).
• Intelligent early-warning strategies and sensor data fusion based on artificial intelligence and pattern recognition algorithms.
• Internet of Things (IoT) gas sensing networks for large-scale distributed monitoring.
• Reliability, stability, and standardized testing of gas sensors under complex real-world conditions.
• Gas sensing technologies for fire investigation and accident analysis.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Peiyu Duan
Dr. Qiangling Duan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fire is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• gas sensors
• early fire warning
• clean energy safety monitoring
• novel sensing materials
• miniaturized sensor arrays
• AI for detection
• IoT distributed stratigies
• application in complex condition