Analytische Chemie
The discovery and design of high performance Pd-alloys is of great interest for the use of hydrogen as a future energy carrier. Therefore hydrogen has to be detected, separated from other gases and stored. In this respect this thesis presents the combinatorial synthesis and characterization of the ternary Pd-Ni-Co alloy System over a wide composition range based on so-called thin film alloy libraries. Those libraries are model systems to characterize a large number of alloy compositions at the same time. The sputter-deposition process is optimized for the gradient of the Pd concentration on the surface of the alloy library by the use of electron-excited Auger electron spectroscopy. The scientific goal of this work is the experimental Investigation of adsorbate-induced surface segregation phenomena on alloy libraries.
The surface and bulk compositions of an alloy library are studied after deposition, H2 exposure and H2S poisoning. The co-segregation of Ni and Co to the surface is observed. The segregation process is influenced by the oxidation of Ni and Co due to the contact with ambient air, by H2 and by H2S poisoning. Also at very high Pd concentrations in the range of 87 at.% to 97 at.%, which is interesting for the detection of very low H2-Concentrations in air, the co-segregation of Ni and Co takes place. The poisoning effects were investigated in detail on a pre-selected Pd-Ni-Co alloy by photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS, HAXPES) in addition to AES and EDX. The composition profile of the alloy on the nm scale is acquired and the surface and bulk chemistry is discussed before and after poisoning. The composition of the alloy only changed within the first 3 nm due to H2S exposure. In the ternary Pd-Ni-Co alloy system Pd is present in its metallic state, while Ni and Co show several oxidation states. The presented concepts of ternary alloy development pave the way for the systematic synthesis and characterization of new ternary transition metal alloy systems.
We analysed the hydrogen generation during the smouldering of polymeric materials, which are typically used in the household, in the Smoke Density Chamber coupled to a new developed hydrogen sensor to detect early stages of fires. The results of hydrogen generation were compared with the emission of carbon monoxide and smoke during the fire scenarios. Additionally, the results were compared with parameters used in traditional commercial detection systems. In this scenario, the hydrogen sensor showed encouraging results for the detection of fires in earlier phase compared to traditional detectors. Furthermore, we tested the new developed hydrogen sensor in a real room with different fire scenarios. We have also investigated interferences, e.g. steam and cigarette smoke. The hydrogen sensor could detect hydrogen generation in the earliest stage of fire, even before CO and smoke were developed in detectable amounts. Therefore, the hydrogen sensor can be applied for early fire detection in case of pyrolysis. The sensors are quite good for detecting pyrolysis gases. But when it comes to a fast ignition other techniques are more suitable for it. The sensors are best for combination with other techniques, such as smoke detectors.
The efficiency of gas sensor application for facilitating the safe use of hydrogen depends considerably on the sensor response to a change in hydrogen concentration. Therefore, the response time has been measured for five different-type commercially available hydrogen sensors. Experiments showed that all these sensors surpass the ISO 26142 standard; for the response times t90 values of 2 s to 16 s were estimated. Results can be fitted with an exponential or sigmoidal function. It can be demonstrated that the results on transient behaviour depend on both the operating parameters of sensors and Investigation methods, as well as on the experimental conditions: gas change rate and concentration jump.