Scientists from the Silesian University of Technology at the European Hydrogen Week in Brussels
Dr Eng. Karolina Głosz from the Department of Physical Chemistry and Technology of Polymers (Faculty of Chemistry) and dr Eng. Marcin Procek from the Department of Optoelectronics (Faculty of Electrical Engineering) took part in the European Hydrogen Week, which took place on November 20-24, 2023, in Brussels. Scientists presented the HydroSens project at the stand of the National Centre for Science and Development (NCBR).
As part of the HydroSens project, innovative hydrogen sensors based on conductive polymers were developed.
During their speech, dr Głosz and dr Procek promoted the project and its products and presented the capabilities of their units in order to open new paths of cooperation in the field of hydrogen technologies for the Silesian University of Technology.
Scientists from the Silesian University of Technology also took part in the Polish H2 Mixser for European Hydrogen Week networking meeting, which took place at the NCBR office in Brussels. This meeting allowed people representing domestic and foreign institutions and scientific groups dealing with hydrogen technologies to get to know each other. The purpose of this meeting and establishing contacts was to facilitate the acquisition of partners for
past research and development projects, including those from framework programs, among others within Horizon Europe.
The HydroSens project "Low-temperature hydrogen sensors based on polycarbazole and its derivatives" (ERA.NET3/2021/93/HYDROSENS/2022) is an ongoing project financed by NCBR, implemented as part of the international M-ERA.NET consortium with scientific and industrial partners from Poland, Spain and Sweden. The Silesian University of Technology is the leader of the project, headed by dr Eng. Tomasz Jarosz from the Department of Physical Chemistry and Technology of Polymers, and the multidisciplinary design team also includes employees from the Department of Optoelectronics. The Polish industrial partner is PGNiG (Orlen), and the consortium members include the Centre for Micro and Nanoelectronics from Barcelona (CNM-IMB, Barcelona), MidDec Scandinavia (a company from Sundsvall in Sweden) and Sensible Things that Communicate (STC, a research centre at Mid Sweden University from Sundsvall, Sweden).
The project is focused on the production and implementation of hydrogen sensors based on electropolymerized polycarbazole and its derivatives (conductive polymers) operating at ambient temperature (unlike existing solutions that require heating the sensor). The technology of these sensors was developed and patented by a team from the Silesian University of Technology. The HydroSens project is developing sensor structures, electronic systems for measuring and processing the measurement signal, and a device communication system operating in accordance with the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The developed sensors will be tested in real conditions at experimental facilities of PGNiG (Orlen).
