A Cost-Effective Analytical Technology for Identification and Measurement of Greenhouse Gases

This project will develop a cost-effective analytical technology platform for identifying and measuring concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide and trace greenhouse gas constituents such as carbon monoxide. The proposed analytical platform is based on Penning Ionization Electron Spectroscopy (PIES) in plasma. PIES technology relies on a simple analog measurement configuration capable of unique identification of chemical species. No optical or high-vacuum equipment is required, which opens up the opportunity to make the proposed analyzer a miniature, low weight, low energy and low material consumption device. Phase I experiments demonstrated capabilities of PIES technology when PIES analytical spectra were obtained in a breadboard version of a PIES detector coupled with a gas chromatograph. In the Phase II project, each element of the Analytical Platform based on PIES technology (APP) will be miniaturized and combined in an integrated analyzer platform capable of in situ real-time identification and monitoring of greenhouse gases. A prototype of the APP analyzer will be developed and tested. In Phase III, the APP will be realized on a single chip. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: Instruments based on APP are intended to serve multiple needs for industries where size, weight, resource and energy consumption requirements are top priority. A portable and rugged APP analyzer will be particularly attractive in fields as: microelectronics (e.g. for monitoring the environment of pure industrial processes), home security, pharmaceutical, biochemical, petrochemical, forensics (e.g., drug screening and toxicology research), and hazardous waste treatment.