Ceramic Gas Sensors

Gas sensors are devices that change their physico-chemical properties according to the ambient gas, thus providing information about the composition of their ambient atmosphere. Ceramic gas sensors deserve special attention due to their social and economic impact and, accordingly, their role and their application areas have been constantly increasing during the past decade. The ceramic gas sensors are classified according to: (i) the sensing materials (receptors); and (ii) the physical properties that are changed at the sensing event (transduction principle). This chapter provides an introduction to different sensor types. It discusses operational principles of metal-oxide-based gas sensors. The performance characteristics or measurands, which are typically used for rating the quality of sensors according to its detection properties are sensor signal, sensitivity and analytical sensitivity. The chapter explains nano-micro integration and gas detection mechanism. Finally, it discusses the most important challenges in materials science