Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.3390/s19235073
Licence creative commons licence
Title (Primary) A new principle for measuring the average relative humidity in large volumes of non-homogenous gas
Author Lazik, D.; de Rooij, G.H.; Lazik, W.; Meissner, R.
Source Titel Sensors
Year 2019
Department BOSYS
Volume 19
Issue 23
Page From art. 5073
Language englisch
Keywords relative humidity; water vapor pressure; sensor; vapor-selective membrane; tubular form factor; representative measurement; heterogeneous systems
Abstract Due to the current extent of arid regions, the pressure on available water resources is increasing. A suitable measure for water availability and dynamics in dry soil is the relative humidity of the soil air. Due to the heterogeneity of soil, water inputs, and root water uptake, the humidity of soil air will vary in space. Therefore, area-representative measurement methods are needed to find a representative measure of the soil water status. Existing sensors for the direct determination of relative humidity only represent a single location with a spatial extent of up to several cm. We introduce a new measuring principle that averages over a spatially heterogeneously distributed relative humidity. It is based on the selective diffusion of water vapor pressure through a tubular semipermeable membrane to/from a closed measurement chamber. A measured pressure change is sensitive to the water vapor pressure and enables, without any external calibration, to estimate an average of the relative humidity. The comparison of our first laboratory prototype of the new sensor with calibrated reference sensors for relative humidity in a range of approx. 4 to 100% proves the linearity of the measuring method and its high accuracy. For further optimization improved reference measurement techniques are necessary. A potential application is the improvement of water use efficiency in irrigated agriculture.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=22439
Lazik, D., de Rooij, G.H., Lazik, W., Meissner, R. (2019):
A new principle for measuring the average relative humidity in large volumes of non-homogenous gas
Sensors 19 (23), art. 5073 10.3390/s19235073