Multi-gas ultrasensitive terahertz technology for environmental quality monitoring

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Canadian mining industry significantly contributes to the internal gross domestic product. New mines or expansion of the existing ones are subject to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA 2012) as well as other provincial regulations. Such federal and local assessments demand the use of gas sensors in these harsh environments to detect the presence of hazardous gases such as NH3, CO, SO2, CO2, CH4, H2S, typically associated with mining activities. However, current multi-gas detection imposes combinations of individual gas sensors, which is a limiting solution because it lacks flexibility and strictly requires an a priori knowledge of the targeted gases. In this Strategic project, we intend to develop a novel and compact multi-gas ultrasensitive THz system, which makes use of a single sensing surface to detect in real-time and to quantify multiple gases, even in a complex mixture. Moreover, an ad-hoc THz detector will be designed and incorporated in the final system to accurately retrieve the spectroscopic information collected from the sensing element. The final device will exhibit unprecedented performance in gas sensing such as high sensitivity (potentially down to the single molecule), high selectivity (gas molecules recognition and quantification) and real-time operation. The clarity of our strategy is the ideal prerequisite towards the successful commercialization in collaboration with our industrial partners (ACME and TeTechS). Our system will be then a key tool to monitor and reduce the environmental impact as well as to improve the efficiency of mining activities.Finally, this proposal represents a perfect example of synergic effort between the academic members from INRS-EMT and the two companies involved, which combines the latest research in graphene chemistry with recent advances in nano-engineered plasmonic surfaces, as well as state-of-the-art terahertz time-domain spectroscopy systems. The know-how generated from this project as well as the training of at least 3 PhD and 1 PDF will contribute to keep Canada at the forefront of the high-technology sector.