Denis Santos explores the critical role of sensors in ensuring safety and efficiency within the H2 Green Valley Agenda

At INL, innovation is at the core of our mission to address global challenges. Dr. Denis Santos, a Research Engineer in the Piteira Research Group since 2023, is advancing sensor technology with applications ranging from biomedical fields to energy systems.

In this interview, Denis Santos explores the critical role of sensors in ensuring safety and efficiency within the H2 Green Valley Agenda, Portugal’s leading green hydrogen initiative. He discusses how working on large-scale projects shapes innovation, balancing cutting-edge research with market needs, and emphasizes the importance of public trust in the scalability of hydrogen systems.

With experience at CERN, Denis Santos offers a unique perspective on transforming research into real-world applications through industry partnerships and technology transfer. His work highlights the power of collaboration in building a sustainable, safe energy future. Dive into this interview to learn how advanced sensor technologies are shaping the path toward a greener tomorrow.

In what ways could your work in sensors contribute to monitoring safety and efficiency in the green hydrogen value chain for the H2 Green Valley Agenda? Hydrogen holds great promise in both the stationary and transportation energy sectors since no harmful emissions are produced during its combustion and it is generally considered safe for the environment. However, hydrogen is a highly inflammable substance and explosive in nature. Moreover, it cannot be easily transported from one place to another. Safety sensors play a crucial role in the hydrogen value chain, ensuring the safe production, storage, distribution, and use of hydrogen. Hydrogen is a very low molecular weight gas, which means it can easily leak and diffuse thus sensors need to be highly sensitive to detect even trace amounts of hydrogen.

Within the H2 Green Valley Agenda we are developing highly sensitive H2 sensors for the real time monitoring of H2 leaks. This means measuring low concentrations of H2, in air, in domestic environments such as kitchens, basements and other locations. These sensors will be installed in proximity of an H2 water boiler being developed by an industrial partner and along the H2 gas lines installed in the house. Two main technologies are being developed namely: 1) Electrochemical sensors by detect hydrogen through the reaction of hydrogen with metallic electrodes and 2) Semiconductor metal-oxide (SMOX) based resistive sensors which measure changes in the electrical conductivity of the SMOX when hydrogen is absorbed. Both technologies can be integrated on a single miniaturized detection chip for detection redundancy, signal control and overlap of detection ranges.

What impact has working on large-scale projects like H2 Green Valley had on your approach to innovation in sensor technology? Large scale projects and, specially the ones not purely research oriented like the PRR agendas have, in my perspective, to be approached in a more pragmatic form than true innovative research ones. Obviously that also depends on the initial and final TRL requirements of the project.

Our work in the H2 Green Valley Agenda is of great importance as safety sensors are vital across the entire H2 value chain to mitigate the risks associated with hydrogen production, storage, distribution, and usage. Ensuring that these sensors are properly integrated into the hydrogen infrastructure is key to achieving safe and reliable future hydrogen systems, which is especially important as hydrogen technologies scale up for wider use in the sectors of energy, transportation, and industry.

The wide application of micro and nano-scale devices for real “out of research” world usage is still in its infancy meaning that just the miniaturized size of the sensors/systems developed at INL are, in many areas of the global society, innovative per se. Having said that, our approach has been towards the miniaturization of the sensing system focusing on the materials used, the design of the sensing elements and microfabrication overall process considering normal benchmark sensing parameters such as sensitivity, selectivity, response time but also considering important aspects towards massification like for instance energy consumption, reliability and microfabrication scalability.

Working with industrial partners in large-scale projects, such as H2 Green Valley Agenda and others PRR agendas, is very helpful to focus our developments on the real needs of the markets and society in general. While our focus, as researchers, generally ranges on improving sensors characteristic parameters through new designs, materials or data analysis techniques, the industrial partners of the consortiums usually have a better understanding of which technology and devices can (or cannot) be adequate to tackle consumer’s needs (domestic or industrial).

Given your experience at CERN, how potential innovations could enhance hydrogen hub safety and scalability in future decarbonization projects? CERN is a very particular organization where research is being performed at the most fundamental level possible. My work on particle physics experiments, specifically the ATLAS detector of the LHC accelerator, didn´t exposed me to innovative technologies that could simply be deployed for real world applications. However, over the 6 years period I spent at CERN, it was clear that many devices and equipment were purposedly designed and fabricated to fulfil the needs of the experiments. Thus, the organization developed many strategic partnerships with industry and open collaborations for the development and production of these specific scientific “tools” and to ensure that its discoveries and technologies benefit society.

I believe that one of the major aspects for the successful scalability of future decarbonization endeavours relies on the public perception regarding the safety of the new energetic model. It will up to the energy supplier/provider to guarantee the safety of the new systems. Similarly to CERN strategies, INL sensors could, through partnerships with industry or technology transfer protocols, be integrated in a network of H2 detection systems, at different steps of the H2 production and distribution chain and be part of a coordinated safety solution for a new energy market.

+ https://h2greenvalley.pt/en/

Text and Photography by Gina Palha, Communication, Conferences & Marketing Officer; Video by Rui Andrade, Communication, Conferences & Marketing Officer