Low-Cost OP-FTIR Spectrometer with Nanoscale Reference for Industrial Monitoring

The goal of this Phase II program is to design, build, test, and deliver a compact, rugged, Open-Path Fourier Transform Infrared (OP-FTIR) spectrometer system. This system will be able to work in the information-rich 8 to 13 micron region with a 16cm-1spectral resolution. This resolution is a specifically tailored for identifying and quantifying heavy industrial solvent molecules with better sensitivity than a high-resolution spectrophotometer. Our OP-FTIR system will be designed to combine lowmanufacturing cost with high sensitivity in a rugged, fieldable instrument. In particular, the system incorporates a novel encoder-based metrology system to replace the He-Ne laser interferometer that is used in most FTIR systems, and it uses an uncooledmicrobolometer in place of the more traditional cryogenically-cooled Hg-Cd-Te detector. These factors, combined with the 16cm-1 resolution and other design economies, will result in a system that is smaller and less expensive than competing systems thatare less sensitive in detecting the molecules of interest. The program will include the development of computational algorithms to extract concentration x pathlength products for multiple molecular species, as well as the development of imbeddedprocessing to run the algorithms (allowing stand-alone operation).