Determination of carbon monoxide in ambient air using piezoelectric crystal sorption detection

A new piezoelectric quartz crystal (PQC) sorption detector was developed to monitor carbon monoxide (CO) at sub-ppm level in ambient air. Out of the 28 coating materials studied, the palladium(II) acetamide complex with a 1:10 mole ratio of Pd(II) to acetamide was found to be the best. The detection is based on a non-reversible gas/coating interaction with sensitivity depending on gas flowrate. For 5-15 min exposure at a flowrate of 50 ml/min, the working ranges were found to vary from 0.7 to 40 ppm (total exposure from 8 to 160 μg CO) and detection limits (S/N=2) from 0.7 to 2 ppm CO (total exposure to 8 μg CO). The repeatability at 10 ppm CO was 11.8% (R.S.D. for n=3). The sensor lifetime was found dependent on exposure up to 160 μg CO or not exceeding 1000 Hz accumulative shift of frequency to avoid saturation of active sites at the crystal surface. No interference to CO detection was found for H₂, H₂S, SO₂, NO₂, CO₂, HCHO, gasoline and water vapors at concentrations much higher than ambient air. Compared to existing CO monitor, the PQC detector developed has advantages of adequate selectivity, high sensitivity, fast response and a much lower detection limit for detecting CO at sub-ppm levels. However, it is limited by the total exposure to a maximum of 160 μg CO that restricts its application to intermittent monitoring of low CO concentration. The present work has demonstrated the advantages of using strong non-reversible interaction to enhance PQC sensitivity, as the total exposure can be adjusted easily by a suitable control of the gas flowrate.