Electrochemical, Multi-gas Air Quality Monitor

Animal agriculture is a $100 billion per year industry in the United States (Copeland, 2010). Livestock and poultry are raised on an estimated 1.3 million farms throughout the nation. About 238,000 of these farms are considered animal feeding operations (AFO)-agricultural enterprises where animals are kept and raised in confinement that result in emissions to the air of particles and gases such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, volatile organic compounds and greenhouse gases such as methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. Emission sources include, barns, feedlot surfaces, manure storage and treatment units, animal composting structures and other smaller sources, but air emissions come predominantly from the microbial breakdown of manure stored in pits or lagoons and spread on fields. To control these air polluting emissions and to achieve improved air quality, various federal agencies such as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) have shown strong interest and support to develop and test new and improved air quality monitoring technologies for the purpose of better process control, from farming operations, and improved air quality. Based on this very important need, Giner, Inc. proposes to study and evaluate the feasibility of designing and fabricating a simple-to-operate, selective and solid-polymer electrolyte-based, thick-film electro & shy;chemical multi-gas microsensor module (sensor cell with integrated potentiostatic control and signal-processing circuit) for continuous monitoring of hydrogen sulfide and nitrous oxide from animal agriculture operations. The multi-gas microsensor will be designed for accurate and rapid (less than 30 seconds for 90% of full response, T90) detection of hydrogen sulfide and nitrous oxide concentrations in the range of 0 to 300 ppm. The proposed sensor will be evaluated over the temperature range of 1o to 50oC and relative humidity range of 5% to 95%.