Preparation and characterization of Pd doped YCoO3 perovskite CO sensors

In this paper the authors present the characterization of CO resistive sensors based on Pd modified YCoO3 perovskite, mainly addressed to its cross-sensitivities to different gases. In particular, sensors based on YCo0.95Pd0.05O3 and on YCo0.90Pd0.10O3 in addition to those based on 1% Pd supported on YCoO3 were tested; this materials showed a good performance at relatively low temperatures in terms of both CO sensitivity and response speed. The proposed sensors were tested with mixtures of CH4, NO2, and NO as interfering gases. Promising results were obtained in the temperature range 150°C – 200 °C, where the sensitivity towards CH4 results very low, whereas the response to NO2 and to NO is not negligible, but it is of the opposite sign with respect to the one towards CO. These results indicate that the proposed perovskitic materials are suitable candidates for low power CO sensor development.