Carbon dioxide sensor
Measuring carbon dioxide is important in monitoring Indoor air quality and many industrial processes. NDIR sensors are spectroscopic sensors to detect CO2 in a gaseous environment by its characteristic absorption. New developments include using MEMS to bring down the costs of this sensor and to create smaller devices (for example for use in air conditioning applications). Chemical CO2 gas sensors with sensitive layers based on polymer- or heteropolysiloxane have the principal advantage of a very low energy consumption and can be reduced in size to fit into microelectronic-based systems.Most are used for carbon dioxide, because no other sensing method works reliably for this gas. NDIR sensors are most often used for measuring carbon dioxide.
The most common principles for CO2 sensors are infrared gas sensors (NDIR) and chemical gas sensors. Typical NDIR sensors are still in the (US) $100 to $1000 range.
The gas is pumped or diffuses into the light tube, and the electronics measures the absorption of the characteristic wavelength of light. The key components are an infrared source, a light tube, an interference (wavelength) filter, and an infrared detector.
A carbon dioxide sensor or CO2 sensor is an instrument for the measurement of carbon dioxide gas. On the downside, short- and long term drift effects as well as a rather low overall lifetime are major obstacles when compared with the NDIR measurement principle. .
