Gas sensing properties of standard soda-lime glass

In this work, we demonstrate that standard soda-lime glass is an electrochemically active material, which has inherent gas sensing features. However, unlike in classical sensing materials, the resistance based sensing response in the soda-lime glass is determined by its space-charge polarization induced by re-distribution of modifier Na+ ions under DC bias, which can be further altered by interaction with atmospheric gases. This mechanism governs the sensing behaviours of not only chemically active oxidizing and reducing agents, but also chemically inert CO2. Moreover, CO2 sensing response can be greatly enhanced by balancing the polarization voltage and applied DC bias. The obtained results indicate that the use of conventional soda-lime glass as a substrate material for chemiresistive gas sensing can be a source of uncertainty and may even lead to false-positive sensing characteristics for highly resistive ceramic nanostructures of interest. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.