Highly Sensitive and Selective Detection of Hydrogen Using Pd-Coated SnO2 Nanorod Arrays for Breath-Analyzer Applications

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 22; no. 5; p. 2056
• Main Authors: Jung, Hwaebong, Hwang, Junho, Choe, Yong-Sahm, Lee, Hyun-Sook, Lee, Wooyoung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 07-03-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Analyzers; breath hydrogen analyzer; Breath tests; Carbon dioxide; Chromatography; Column chromatography; Constipation; Disease; Fermentation; Gas chromatography; gas sensor; Gases; Hydrogen; Inflammatory bowel disease; Irritable bowel syndrome; Metabolism; Nanoparticles; Operating temperature; Palladium; Pd-coated SnO2 nanorods; Selectivity; Sensors; Tin dioxide; Japan
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s22052056

We report a breath hydrogen analyzer based on Pd-coated SnO2 nanorods (Pd-SnO2 NRs) sensor integrated into a miniaturized gas chromatography (GC) column. The device can measure a wide range of hydrogen (1–100 ppm), within 100 s, using a small volume of human breath (1 mL) without pre-concentration. Especially, the mini-GC integrated with Pd-SnO2 NRs can detect 1 ppm of H2, as a lower detection limit, at a low operating temperature of 152 °C. Furthermore, when the breath hydrogen analyzer was exposed to a mixture of interfering gases, such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, methane, and acetone, it was found to be capable of selectively detecting only H2. We found that the Pd-SnO2 NRs were superior to other semiconducting metal oxides that lack selectivity in H2 detection. Our study reveals that the Pd-SnO2 NRs integrated into the mini-GC device can be utilized in breath hydrogen analyzers to rapidly and accurately detect hydrogen due to its high selectivity and sensitivity.