Demonstration of In₂O₃-Based Methane Sensor With Minimum Baseline Drift by Preheating and Optical Activation

Metal oxide-based gas sensors often suffer from baseline drift and selectivity. Software-based algorithms are usually used to correct errors arising from the drift phenomenon. However, the error probability will decrease if the drift can be nullified or minimized from the experimental part. This article has conducted a detailed study to nullify the baseline drift of In2O3-based CH4 sensors by employing prolonged heating at <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$250~^{\circ }$ </tex-math></inline-formula>C with activation techniques. The baseline drift of the sensor was reduced to less than 1% by the technique of dual activation. The device was tested for selective sensing of CH4 and its stability was investigated. The device reproduced the same baseline after multiple cycles of operation.