Application of a membrane reactor and an ultra-short packed gas chromatographic column to optimize the gas selectivity of a resistive thin film gas sensor

A current problem various gas sensors have to deal with is the lack of selectivity against a single gas in the presence of gas mixture. This paper presents the application of a membrane reactor consisting of a permeable, porous silicon membrane combined with an ultra-short packed silicon gas chromatographic column (GCC) to optimize the gas selectivity for a resistive thin film gas sensor. Catalytic Pre-treatment enables the modification of the gas mixture chemistry to amplify the gas sensors response diversification. E.g. for resistive thin film gas sensors it is an advantage to convert CO into CO₂ or, in order to achieve a better selectivity to other gas components, to realise a temporal separation of the different gas species. A membrane reactor for pre-combustion and a GCC for the gas separation has been realized.