Research progress on electrochemical gas sensors for fire detection
Qun Wu, Zhenzhou Ding, Weidong Zhang
Abstract
Electrochemical sensing technology represents a rapidly advancing area in fire detection, offering significant improvements over traditional smoke and heat sensors. This review comprehensively examines the current state and recent advances of electrochemical fire detection sensors, emphasizing their ability to identify toxic gases produced during combustion at early stages, thereby enhancing occupant safety. Electrochemical gas sensors excel in detecting carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds with high specificity and sensitivity. Advanced materials such as carbon nanostructures, noble metal catalysts, and metal-organic frameworks have significantly improved sensor performance by increasing sensitivity and reducing response times. However, electrochemical sensors face challenges, including cross-sensitivity, stability issues, and the need for periodic calibration, which currently limit their widespread adoption. Multisensor fusion techniques integrating electrochemical gas sensors with traditional smoke and heat detectors, coupled with sophisticated algorithms including neural networks and fuzzy logic, effectively address false alarms and enhance early fire detection reliability. Emerging innovations like flexible, wearable fire-sensing textiles and smart sensor arrays using microfabrication technology suggest exciting future possibilities for the integration of electrochemical sensors into diverse fire monitoring applications. Despite existing challenges, continuous improvements in sensor technology, combined with intelligent algorithms and big-data analytics, point toward increasingly robust, miniaturized, and smart fire detection systems in the future.