Miniaturised flame ionisation detector for explosion protection in civil sewerage networks

This work presents a new approach to enhance the civil safety by monitoring the civil sewerage networks to prevent formation of explosive atmospheres and thus enabling early initialisation of counter measures. For this approach a new system with a miniaturised flame ionisation detector (FID) as embedded sensor has been developed. The micro FID embeds the fluidic components, the micro burner, the electrical structures for ignition and ion current measurement, and resistive temperature measurement elements in one monolithic ceramic component. Characterisation of the micro FID revealed good sensor performance with high sensitivity and reduced gas consumption compared to conventional FIDs. Thus, this micro FID is an excellent choice for an embedded sensor in the context of monitoring the civil sewerage.