Fiber Optical Micro-detectors for Oxygen Sensing in Power Plants

摘要

A reflection mode fiber optic oxygen sensor that can operate at high temperatures for power plant applications is being developed. The sensor is based on the {sup 3}O{sub 2} quenching of the red emission from hexanuclear molybdenum chloride clusters. Our approach towards immobilizing the potassium salt of the molybdenum cluster, K{sub 2}Mo{sub 6}Cl{sub 14}, at the far end of an optical fiber is to embed the cluster in a thermally cured sol-gel matrix particle. This particle-in-binder approach affords fibers with greatly improved mechanical properties, as compared to previous approaches. The sensor was characterized in 2-21% gas phase oxygen at 40, 70 and 100 C. These are promising results for a high temperature fiber optical oxygen sensor based on molybdenum chloride clusters.