I-Corps: Open-path, compact nitrous oxide sensor using quantum cascade laser spectroscopy

大气中的一氧化二氮（N2O）是一种重要的温室气体，它对大气排放的限制很差。为了帮助满足某些社会需求并尽量减少对环境的影响，有必要确定以最低经济成本减少一氧化二氮排放的做法。现有的商用N2O仪器由于其非常高的功耗、大质量和笨重的尺寸，在现场环境中使用可能具有挑战性。可以测量现场环境下N2O排放或作为传感器网络一部分的传感器很少，如果有的话。通过这个项目，研究人员提出了一个基于量子级联激光光谱的开放路径N2O传感器原型。该项目在大气/温室气体研究界、生物医学传感、汽车排放和车辆燃烧以及工业气体监测方面具有潜在的应用前景。商业可行性的成功演示可能会为了解温室气体排放提供一条有效途径，并提供数据，以最大限度地减少经济损失来改进缓解做法。目前，研究温室气体通量、氮循环和空气质量的研究人员几乎没有可用的传感器来了解一氧化二氮的排放。此外，所提出的活动也可应用于汽车排放、燃烧诊断和过程控制、生物医学传感和工业痕量气体监测。

Atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O), an important greenhouse gas, has poorly constrained emissions to the atmosphere. To help meet certain societal needs and minimize effects on the environment, it is necessary to identify practices that mitigate N2O emissions at minimal economic costs. Existing commercial N2O instrumentation may be challenging to use in field environments due to their very high power consumption, large mass and bulky size. Few, if any, sensors are available that can measure N2O emissions under field environments or as part of sensor networks. Through this project, researchers propose to demonstrate a prototype open-path N2O sensor based upon quantum cascade laser spectroscopy. This project has potential applications for the atmospheric/greenhouse gas research community, biomedical sensing, automotive emissions and vehicle combustion as well as industrial gas monitoring. Successful demonstration of the commercial viability may result in an efficient path toward understanding greenhouse gas emissions and providing data to improve mitigation practices with minimal economic damage. Currently, researchers studying greenhouse gas fluxes, the nitrogen cycle, and air quality have few sensors available to understand nitrous oxide emissions. In addition, the proposed activities also have application in automotive emissions, combustion diagnostics and process control, biomedical sensing, and industrial trace gas monitoring.