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

基础设施的天然气泄漏对石油和天然气工业在经济上是不利的，并且对环境也有负面影响。为了解决与检测基础设施中的挥发性气体相关的困难，我们建议使用无人驾驶飞行器（UAV）对天然气基础设施（包括管道和泵站）进行具有成本效益的空中监测。这项研究的新奇在于使用了一种独特的气体传感技术，而不是现成的激光或红外遥感设备。所提出的技术相对于其他传感器的优点包括：i）其对小浓度（ppm水平）的目标气体的更高灵敏度，ii）其对复杂气体混合物中的目标化合物的增强的选择性，iii）其可忽略的功耗，以及iv）其显著更低的重量（<20 g）。这些特征沿着其低制造成本使得所提出的气体传感器成为其集成到UAV中的优秀解决方案。即使要求与无人机保持视线，该系统仍将允许监测数百公顷的土地和数十公里的管道，以每小时确定可能的泄漏位置。相比之下，使用现有的人工检查设备测量类似大小的区域可能需要几天时间，特别是在基础设施有限的情况下。我们的目标是在电子鼻技术和基于无人机的遥感和监测应用方面取得的成就的基础上：i）制造包括气体感测元件和平流通道微流体甲烷和乙烷检测器，ii）为探测器开发低功率控制器和开关系统，iii）将探测器集成到多旋翼无人机中。与Hetek Solutions Inc.合作，我们将进行必要的实地测试，以进行验证，并与该公司合作，就拟议系统在石油和天然气行业广泛商业使用所需的认证程序的技术方面进行合作。

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.