Fiber Optical Micro-detectors for Oxygen Sensing in Power Plants

A reflection mode fiber optic oxygen sensor that can operate at high temperatures for power plant applications is being developed. The sensor is based on the {sup 3}O{sub 2} quenching of the red emission from hexanuclear molybdenum chloride clusters. Our approach towards immobilizing the potassium salt of the molybdenum cluster, K{sub 2}Mo{sub 6}Cl{sub 14}, at the far end of an optical fiber is to embed the cluster in a thermally cured sol-gel matrix particle. Due to the improved mechanical properties of this approach high temperature sensor measurements were performed up to 100 C. These are promising results for a high temperature fiber optical oxygen sensor based on molybdenum chloride clusters