Gas sensor working and circuit diagram
Gas sensor working and circuit diagram
• The ability of a Gas sensor to detect gases depends on the chemi-
resistor to conduct current. The most commonly used chemi-resistor is
Tin Dioxide (SnO2) which is an n-type semiconductor that has free
electrons (also called as donor).
• Normally the atmosphere will contain more oxygen than combustible
gases. The oxygen particles attract the free electrons present in SnO2
which pushes them to the surface of the SnO2. As there are no free
electrons available output current will be zero.
• When the sensor is placed in the toxic or combustible gases
environment, this reducing gas react with the adsorbed oxygen
particles and breaks the chemical bond between oxygen and free
electrons thus releasing the free electrons.
• As the free electrons are back to its initial position, they can now
conduct current, this conduction will be proportional to the amount of
free electrons available in SnO2, if the gas is highly toxic more free
electrons will be available.
• A basic gas sensor has 6 terminals in which 4 terminals (A, A, B, B) acts
input or output and the remaining 2 terminals (H, H) are for heating the
coil.
• Of these 4 terminals, 2 terminals from each side can be used as either
input or output (these terminals are reversible as shown in the circuit
diagram) and vice versa.
• These sensors are normally available as modules (shown right), these
modules consist of the gas sensor and a comparator IC. The gas sensor
module basically consists of 4 terminals:
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Gas sensor working and circuit diagram
o Vcc — Power supply
o GND — Power supply
o Digital output — This pin gives an output either in logical high or
logical low (0 or 1) that means it displays the presence of any
toxic or combustible gases near the sensor.
o Analog output — This pin gives an output continuous in voltage
which varies based on the concentration of gas that is applied to
the gas sensor. The output of a gas sensor alone will be very small
(in mV) so an external circuit has to be used in order to get a
digital high low output from the sensor. For this purpose, a
comparator (LM393), adjustable potentiometer, some resistors
and capacitors are used.
• The purpose of LM393 is to get the output from the sensor, compare it
with a reference voltage and display whether the output is logically
high or not. Whereas the purpose of the potentiometer is to set the
required threshold value of the gas above which the digital output pin
should go high.
• The Fig. shows the basic circuit diagram of a gas sensor in a gas sensor
module.
Circuit diagram of a gas sensor
• Here A and B are the input and output terminals (these are reversible -
means any of the paired terminals can be used as input or output) and
H is the Heater coil terminal.
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Gas sensor working and circuit diagram
• The purpose of the variable resistor is to adjust the output voltage and
to maintain high sensitivity.
• If no input voltage is applied to the heater coil, then the output current
will be very less (which is negligible or approximately 0). When
sufficient voltage is applied to the input terminal and heater coil, the
sensing layer wakes up and is ready to sense any combustible gases
nearby it.
• Initially let's assume that there is no toxic gas near the sensor, so the
resistance of the layer doesn't change and the output current and
voltage are also unchanged and are negligible (approximately 0).
• Now let's assume that there is some toxic gas nearby. As the heater coil
is pre-heated it is now easy to detect any combustible gases. When the
sensing layer interacts with the gases, the resistance of the material
varies and the current flowing through the circuit also varies. This
change in variation can be then observed at the load resistance (RL).
• The value of load resistance (RL) can be anywhere from 10KΩ to 47KΩ.
The exact value of the load resistance can be selected by calibrating
with the known concentration of the gas. If low load resistance is
selected then the circuit has less sensitivity and if high load resistance
is selected then the circuit has high sensitivity.
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