Technology Research on CH
4
Sensor with Pd
Catalyst using Supported Nano-material Carrier of
γ-Al
2
O
3
-ZrO
2
-ThO
2
Hong-quan Zhang
1
, Kai Zhang
2
, Qing Zhang
1*
, and Ai-dong Liu
3*
1.College of Automation, Harbin Engineering University , China
2. Key Laboratory of In-Fiber Integrated Optics Ministry of Education, Harbin Engineering University , China
3. School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, China
zhanghq1@126.com, s315110052@hrbeu.edu.cn, zhq402@hrbeu.edu.cn, Liuaidong@hrbeu.edu.cn
Abstract—Templates with Al
2
O
3
nanoporous was prepared in
method of in-situ growth. A nano-material carrier of γ-Al
2
O
3
-
ZrO
2
-ThO
2
was designed by chemical deposition based on these
templates. Using this carrier as active components, a Pd catalyst
with high catalytic oxidation activity was fabricated for CH
4
sensor. As analysis of scanning electron microscopy(SEM) shown,
the Pd catalyst could uniformly distribute in the nano-material
carrier of γ-Al
2
O
3
-ZrO
2
-ThO
2
. A CH
4
sensor with Pd catalyst in
the nano-material carrier of γ-Al
2
O
3
-ZrO
2
-ThO
2
was fabricated.
As experiments proved, the activity of this CH
4
sensor has good
linearity and rapidity. In CH
4
concentration range of 0~4.7%,
every 1% CH
4
concentration parallels every 12mv voltage of this
CH4 sensor. Response time from low concentration to 90% high
concentration was 6s. Recover time from high concentration to
90% low concentration was 8s.
Keywords—catalyst; carrier; nano-tube array; CH
4
; sensor
I. INTRODUCTION
Thermal stability at high temperature and activity at low
temperature are the two key problems of catalysts for catalytic
combustion of CH
4
[1,2]. Pd and other supported noble metal
with good catalytic performance is the classic catalyst with
activity at low temperature for combustion of CH
4
. If the
catalyst was the single noble metal, failures caused by high-
temperature sintering and agglomeration evaporation easily
occur[3,4]. Recently, metal oxide catalyst even the one co-
modified by transition metal oxides attracted wide attention.
In high-temperature combustion of CH
4
, it is an effective
method to improve stability of CH
4
sensor by using metal
oxide catalyst co-modified by weak-radioactivity metal oxides
to improve the thermal activity for noble metal catalyst.
Compared to the sensor with Pt or other noble metal coils
as catalyst carrier, the sensor with mesoporous alumina as
catalyst carrier has lower power consumption and drift[5,6,7].
If there is serious carbon deposition on the surface of catalyst
carrier caused by inadequate combustion of high-carbon
Alkanes, the efficiency of the catalyst will be decreased even
the stability of the sensor will be also decreased. Thus, it is the
primary requirement for high-stability sensors that the catalyst
carrier should have high-throughout nano-porous for
polymers[8,9,10].
Because of uniformly distributed nano-porous, there are
more permeable channels in the nano-tubes array carrier based
on Templates with Al
2
O
3
nanoporous prepared in method of
in-situ growth than the classic granular Al
2
O
3
carrier. Thus,
the nano-tubes array carrier may replace the the classic
granular carrier in fabrication of CH
4
sensors.
In this paper, the nano-tubes array Al
2
O
3
was modified to
improve the single γ- Al
2
O
3
carrier in agglomeration, thermal
Stability and restraint of metal catalyst. A CH
4
sensor with Pd
catalyst in the nano-material carrier of γ-Al
2
O
3
-ZrO
2
-ThO
2
was fabricated.
II. FABRICATION OF CH
4
SENSOR
A. Equipment for in-situ growth preparation of templates
with Al
2
O
3
nanoporous
The Equipment for in-situ growth preparation of templates
with Al
2
O
3
nanoporous is a two-electrodes system that
consists of pure Aluminum as cathode, gold foil as anode,
mixture of Sulfuric Acid and oxalic acid as electrolyte, and
AC Voltage Regulator as power. The distance between the
two-eclectrodes could be adjusted. The temperature of the
mixture is measured by a thermometer, controlled by a flume
system, and forced to cycle by an electromagnetic pump.
Fig. 1. Test equipment for preparation of templates for in-situ growth Al
2
O
3
nanoporous
978-1-5386-5373-9/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
2018 IEEE 4th Information Technology and Mechatronics Engineering Conference (ITOEC 2018)