Wet Chemical Synthesis and Screening of Thick Porous Oxide Films for Resistive Gas Sensing Applications

A method of wet chemical synthesis suitable for high throughput and combinatorial applications has been developed for the synthesis of porous resistive thick-film gas sensors. This method is based on the robot-controlled application of unstable metal oxide suspensions on an array of 64 inter-digital electrodes positioned on an Al2O3 substrate. SnO2, WO3, ZrO2, TiO2, CeO2, In2O3 and Bi2O3 were chosen as base oxides, and were optimised by doping or mixed oxide formation. The parallel synthesis of mixed oxide sensors is illustrated by representative examples. The electrical characteristics and the sensor performance of the films were measured by high-throughput impedance spectroscopy while supplying various test gases (H2, CO, NO, NO2, propene). Data collection, data mining techniques applied and the best potential sensor materials discovered are presented.