With the rapid development of new-generation information technologies such as the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, the global intelligence and informatization are accelerating, and the demand for gas sensors in the fields of industrial transformation and upgrading, environmental monitoring, and health care continues to upgrade, and gas sensors usher in a period of rapid growth.
The relatively mature fields of domestic gas sensor research and industrialization are mainly semiconductor and catalytic combustion sensors.
The above two types of gas sensors have a relatively high market share in the domestic market and have strong international competitiveness; domestic manufacturers are engaged in electrochemical gas sensors, Infrared gas sensors and other fields started relatively late and lacked systematic and in-depth research.
Compared with international manufacturers such as City Technology, Amphenol, and Sinclair, their brand influence is weaker.
In terms of specific classification, there are more and more types of gas sensors.
At present, there are no less than five types of gas sensors on the market, including semiconducting gas sensors, contact combustion gas sensors, solid electrolyte gas sensors, electrochemical gas sensors, optical gas sensors, etc.
Among the currently used gas sensors, there are mainly four types of optical, semiconductor, electrochemical, and catalytic combustion.
Among them, the appearance and application of optical technology are a little late, the price is higher, and it’s difficult, and the current market share is small.
According to data, in 2017, electrochemical, infrared, and semiconductor technologies in the global gas sensor market together accounted for more than 95% of the market share, of which gas sensors using infrared technology only accounted for 15%.
In the industrial field, gas sensors are mainly used in the petrochemical industry.
Some carbon dioxide sensors, ammonia sensors, nitric oxide sensors, etc. can be used in specific applications for detecting carbon dioxide, ammonia, and other harmful gases.
In addition, it can be used to detect organic solvents and toxic gases such as phosphorane in the semiconductor and microelectronics industries; in the power industry, hydrogen sensors can detect hydrogen generated during the deterioration of power transformer oil.
For smart homes, if there is no sensor, its intelligence and convenience will not be reflected, and the later data will lack reliability.
However, applying the sensor to the field of life requires further enhancement of its accuracy, consistency, and stability.
As the information source of the automotive electronic control system, the automotive gas sensor is a key component in the automotive exhaust gas after treatment system.
It directly or indirectly determines the control level of automotive emissions, which helps reduce emissions pollution, automotive energy conservation, and environmental protection, and improve energy efficiency.
With the rapid development of automotive automation, electronics, and networking, automotive gas sensors are facing a period of rapid development opportunities.
Some analysts pointed out that in the next five years, gas sensors will be developed on the basis of making full use of micro-mechanical and micro-electronic technology, computer technology, signal processing technology, sensing technology, fault diagnosis technology, intelligent technology, and other integrated technologies. The development of a fully automatic digital smart gas sensor that can simultaneously monitor multiple gases will be one of the future development trends.
On the whole, China’s sensor industry currently has problems of “small, scattered, chaotic, and weak”.
Sensor companies can take advantage of favorable factors such as policy support and talent training to seize market opportunities, enhance corporate strength, and expand the industrial scale. The sensor industry continues to grow and develop.
It is foreseeable that with the continuous acceleration of traditional industrial digitization and automation transformation and upgrading, and the implementation and promotion of IoT demonstration projects in various places, various sensors such as temperature, pressure, gas, humidity, flow, pyroelectricity, etc. will show good results.
The application effects of digital agriculture, digital mines, industrial safety monitoring networks, etc., will be closely linked with various sensors. Regardless of the inconspicuous appearance of the sensor, its role is hard to replace.