Development and field test of highly sensitive and selective microfluidic gas sensor for methane leak detection

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Natural gas leakage from infrastructure is economically detrimental to the oil and gas industry and also has a negative impact on the environment. To address the difficulties associated with detecting fugitive gases from the infrastructure we propose the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for cost-effective aerial monitoring of natural gas infrastructure including pipelines and pump stations. The novelty of this research is the use of a unique gas sensing technology instead of the off-the-shelf laser or infrared remote sensing equipment. The advantages of the proposed technology over other sensors include: i) its higher sensitivity to small concentrations (ppm level) of the target gas, ii) its enhanced selectivity to the target compound in a complex gas mixture, iii) its negligible power consumption, and iv) its significantly lower weight (<20g). These features along with its low manufacturing cost make the proposed gas sensor an excellent solution for its integration into a UAV. Even with the requirement to maintain line of sight with the UAV, the system will still allow for monitoring several hundred hectares of land and tens of kilometers of pipeline to identify a likely leakage location hourly. Comparatively, surveying an area of a similar size using the existing manual inspection equipment can take a few days, especially when access to the infrastructure is limited.Our goal is to build upon our previous achievements in both e-nose technology and UAV-based remote sensing and monitoring applications to: i) fabricate a microfluidic methane and ethane detector including gas sensing elements and advection channels, ii) develop a low-power controller and switching system for the detector, and iii) integrate the detector into a multirotor UAV. Working with Hetek Solutions Inc., we will conduct the necessary field tests for verification, and work with this company on the technical aspects of the certificationprocedures required for widespread commercial use of the proposed system in the oil and gas industry.