A highly sensitive and selective hydrogen gas sensor from thick oriented films of MoS2

A new process is developed to fabricate a highly sensitive and selective hydrogen sensor by depositing a partially crystalline and highly oriented film of MoS₂ from its single layer suspension on an alumina substrate. When these films are promoted with some catalysts selected from Pt-group metals (Pt, Pd, Ru or any combination of these metals) they exhibit a high sensitivity and selectivity to hydrogen gas. Unlike other metal oxide sensors which are sensitive to many reducing and oxidizing gases and operate at a temperature of 350 °C or higher; this sensor is highly selective to hydrogen gas and its operating temperature is from 25 to 150°C. The lower operating temperature enhances safety when dealing with hydrogen gas. The sensor response to hydrogen at 120 °C is linear in concentration from 30 to 10⁴ ppm with a 10 to 30 second response time and a 45 to 90 second recovery time. Above 10⁴ ppm the sensor is still linear but the slope of conductance versus hydrogen concentration changes.