Pulsed voltammetry has been applied to drinking water monitoring. This non-selective technique facilitates detection of several different threats to the drinking water. A multivariate algorithm shows that anomaly detection is possible with a minimum of false alarms. Multivariate analysis can also be used to classify different types of substances added to the drinking water. Low concentrations of sewage water contaminating the drinking water can be detected. A network of such sensors is envisaged to facilitate real-time and on-line monitoring of drinking water distribution networks.

The EVENT project concerns drinking water surveillance and includes sensors and algorithms that detect anomalies in the drinking water properties, communication of the evaluated sensor data to a crises management system and presentation of information that is relevant for the end users of the crises management system. We have chosen to focus on a sensor technique based on an "electronic tongue", since this robust type of non-selective sensor, can detect a plurality of anomalies without the need of a specific sensor for each type of event. Measurements of natural variations and contamination events are presented and discussed.

In this paper, we explore the combination of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and multivariate data analysis to simultaneously predict the concentrations of soot and diesel in engine oil. For this purpose, we use a well defined measurement set-up to minimize interference from ambient noise, and to obtain a large amount of data in a short period of time. An imperative requirement is that soot and diesel affect the impedance in different ways over the employed frequency range. It was, for example, found that diesel had a larger influence at lower frequencies. Using partial least squares modelling we show that it is possible to simultaneously predict the concentrations of both soot and diesel in engine oil. Since the temperature in an engine varies, the influence of the oil temperature is investigated in a preliminary experiment. This study is a part of the development of an electrochemical on-board sensor for real-time monitoring of engine oil.

The present contribution contains an overview of the development of gas sensitive field-effect devices in Linköping during the last 25 years. It is completely centred to the work at the Laboratory of Applied Physics at Linköping University, and is therefore not a proper review of a research field where many important contributions have been made by several other research groups. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Simulation-based guidelines were developed for designing tube-mounted gas sensors in the exhaust pipes of diesel and petrol engines, taking into account thermal constraints and gas flow conditions. Different block and tube mounting alternatives for SiC-based gas sensors were studied by means of temperature measurements and simulation of steady state heat transfer and gas flow. Design variables included the number of fins in the heat sink mounted on the inlet tube, the inlet construction, the mounting tube orientation, and the micro-heater substrate placement inside the mounting tube. The most preferable tube mounting design was determined with respect to the thermal performance of the sensor structure and with respect to the gas flow parameters, which are important for the sensor's selectivity, sensitivity and response time. Copyright © 2006 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.

This communication presents a modulated mode of operation for MOSFET gas sensors. A low-power micromachined device allows pulsing the temperature of MOSFET gas sensors with a time constant less than 100ms. Modulating the temperature during the gas exposure modifies the kinetics of the gas reactions with the sensing film. The way the sensor response is modified by the temperature modulation depends on the sensor "history", on the nature of the surrounding gaseous atmosphere, and on the type of materials used as catalytic sensing film. Pulsing the temperature up just after the gas exposure can reduce the recovery time for specific applications, such as for hydrogen detection. Cycling the temperature can allow the discrimination between different gas mixtures. Discrimination was shown for gaseous mixtures of hydrogen and ammonia in air. The results obtained indicate that a "smart" combination of sample and temperature profile could be used to expand the information content in the sensor response. © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

This work reports on thermally isolated electronic components for gas sensing applications. The device is composed of an array of 4 MOSFET, a diode and a semiconductor resistor integrated on a micro-hotplate, which is fabricated using bulk micromachining of silicon. The thermal efficiency of the device is 2°C/mW with a thermal constant less than 100 ms. Holes are made in the passivation film over the gates of the MOSFET and gas sensitive films deposited on top of the gate insulator. The low thermal mass device realized allows new modes of operation for MOSFET gas sensors such as a combination of the field and thermal effects and a pulsed temperature mode of operation.

This paper reports on the design, fabrication, and characterization of the first low-power consumption MOSFET gas sensor. The novel MOSFET array gas sensor has been fabricated using anisotropic bulk silicon micromachining. A heating resistor, a diode used as temperature sensor, and four MOSFETs are located in a silicon island suspended by a dielectric membrane. The membrane has a low thermal conductivity coefficient and, therefore, thermally isolates the electronic components from the chip frame. This low thermal mass device allows the reduction of the power consumption to a value of 90 mW for an array of four MOSFETs at an operating temperature of 170 °C. Three of the MOSFETs have their gate covered with thin catalytic metals and are used as gas sensors. The fourth one has a standard gate covered with nitride and could act as a reference. The sensor was tested under different gaseous atmospheres and has shown good gas sensitivities to hydrogen and ammonia. The low-power MOSFET array gas sensor presented is suitable for applications in portable gas sensor instruments, electronic noses, and automobiles.

It is shown how chemically sensitive metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors with a thin discontinuous platinum gate can be modified for the detection of NOx. After a pulse of ammonia the sensors show an increased sensitivity to NOx. The threshold voltage shift induced by NOx is opposite to the direction before the ammonia pulse. The threshold voltage now increases due to NOx exposure, while hydrogen, ammonia and hydrocarbons cause a decrease of the threshold voltage. The temperature dependence of the NOx sensitivity suggests that after the ammonia pulse there are two competing polarisation phenomena caused by the interaction between NOx and the sensing surface. The results are of general interest since they indicate how thin sensing layers can be modified after fabrication to promote sensitivity towards specific molecules. Furthermore they shed some new light on the detection mechanisms of thin discontinuous metal gates.