Accumulating gas sensor principle – how to come from concentration integration to real amount measurements

The accumulating gas sensor principle is a promising concept to measure selectively low amounts of an analyte. Hereby, the change of the electrical properties of an analyte storage material serves as sensor signal. In earlier approaches, the sensor signal integrates only the concentration, in other words, the sensor signal is independent on the gas flow rate. In order to overcome this drawback, a novel setup is presented, in which all incoming analyte molecules are stored, so that the sensor signal is proportional not only to the timely integration of the analyte concentration but also to the integration of the gas flow. With this setup, a real amount measurement is possible.