Room-temperature sensing performance of hydrogen using palladium-based film by optical setup

H2 sensing performance of novel Pd–Pt alloy films has been compared with those obtained by using Pd films and H2-reducted PdO films. Two different detecting systems were used to measure the hydrogenation and de-hydrogenation phases with a H2 concentration of both 5% v/v nitrogen and 1% v/v nitrogen at room temperature. The sensitivity loss observed for the Pd–Pt alloy and H2-reducted PdO samples with respect to pure Pd samples can be explained in terms of the reduction in the lattice constant and interstitial volume due to the Pt addition, which determine a decrement of hydrogen atoms penetrating in the films. On the other hand, results show an improvement in time-response for Pd–Pt alloy and H2-reducted PdO films with respect to pure Pd ones, presumably due to the increase of its permeability to H2. Moreover, the sensing measurements repeated after 60 days show that the Pd–Pt alloy films, unlike the Pd-based ones, fully preserve their performances, demonstrating the advantage of the Pt inclusion for stability purposes when the samples are stored upon humidity.