SOFC detector for portable gas chromatography: High-sensitivity detection of dissolved gases in transformer oil

Dissolved gas analysis (DGA) is widely used in diagnosing the incipient faults of power transformer. The detector is the key component for this method. Despite various sensors for DGA application, many of them suffer from poor stability and low sensitivity. A solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) detector is designed in this paper to address these problems. The mechanism of the detector is briefly introduced, and it is fabricated in a mold. The test process is elucidated. For calibration purpose, two mathematical models of the detector, i.e., double-logarithmic model (DLM) and linearity model (LM), are compared with each other. Experimental results demonstrate that the SOFC detector exhibits good repeatability at given concentrations and excellent linearity with DLM. The results indicate that accurate and high-precision measurement of H
₂
, CH
₄
, CO, C
₂
H
₄
, C
₂
H
₆
, and C
₂
H
₂
can be achieved using the SOFC detector and the proposed DLM.