Design, construction and testing of a system for detection of toxic gases based on piezoelectric crystals

A system for static operation of toxic gas sensors based on piezoelectric crystals was constructed as a preliminary step in the development of this type of sensor. The sensing part of the setup consists of a twin oscillating circuit assembled from commercially available electronic parts mounted on a motherboard. The oscillating circuits can accommodate two piezoelectric crystals, of which one or both can be coated with different materials, or a single one, as required. The sensing assembly (crystals plus oscillating circuits) is placed in a customized test chamber that allows one to control and reproduce its internal environment. Once assembled and fine-tuned, the proposed setup was used to test a commercially available piezoelectric crystal for sensing formaldehyde in order to expand available information on this type of sensor.