SBIR Phase I: Low cost spectrometer for methane sensing

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to protect American workers and the environment from leaks of methane, the primary chemical in natural gas and landfill gas. At high concentrations, methane gas is explosive and can be harmful or fatal if inhaled. Methane leak detection is currently conducted by skilled technicians using handheld sensors, an expensive and labor-intensive process that can be unsafe. This project aims to build low-cost monitoring stations that can automate the methane leak detection process and allow remote real-time monitoring. This project will develop algorithms for low-cost monitoring hardware used in outdoor settings typical of active oil and gas fields and landfills. The research will enhance the precision and accuracy of outdoor methane leak detection while making it affordable for industry and thereby reducing methane leaks. The proposed SBIR Phase I project will advance algorithms to improve the performance of a low-cost and field-deployable spectrophotometer for methane emissions monitoring. This project will develop a field spectrometer that can operate autonomously in outdoor environments without calibration. Specifically, this project focuses on employing instrument-specific methods for accuracy and precision enhancement and for rejecting confounding effects. Classical multivariate modeling methods are improved upon with instrument-specific wavelet methods to tolerate changes in the instrument condition induced by environmental conditions. Additionally, an optimization of the speciation method is proposed to reduce confounding effects due to the presence of unknown gases and to generate a speciation quality indicator. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.