Study of a WO3 thin film based hydrogen gas sensor decorated with platinum nanoparticles

Abstract A simple platinum nanoparticle (Pt NP)/WO3 semiconducting metal oxide (SMO)-based structure is fabricated and completely studied as a hydrogen gas sensor. In this work, simple rapid thermal evaporation (RTE) was employed to fabricate Pt NPs. This approach could easily produce Pt NPs with a small grain size and uniformity on the WO3 thin film. Experimentally, at 200 °C, the studied device exhibited an excellent hydrogen sensing response of 1.41 × 106 (under a 1% H2/air gas), a very low detecting level of 1 ppm H2/air, and a relatively shorter response (recovery) time of 201 s (26) s. Moreover, first order differential (FOD) and shape-preserving piecewise cubic interpolation (SPPCI) were also employed to overcome the wireless transmission problem for the Internet of Things (IoTs). Furthermore, based on the thermodynamic analysis, the surface coverage performance was studied for this device. As the result, the studied device exhibited practically adsorption with hydrogen gas at 200 °C. The studied device is therefore promising for high-performance hydrogen sensing applications.