NOISES - Nitrous Oxide In-Situ Environmental Sensors

一氧化二氮（N2O）是一种重要的温室气体，也是一种强有力的臭氧消耗剂。了解它的环境发生和命运对气候变化科学至关重要，但目前还没有化学策略来测量海洋中的一氧化二氮。该项目旨在通过创建一种定制设计的分子来解决这个问题，这种分子与一氧化二氮发生化学反应，从而产生可检测的颜色变化。然后，这一过程将适用于复杂的环境样品，如海水。该过程将被整合到一个原型微型分析仪设备中，该设备能够检测颜色变化，从而确定溶解在样品中的一氧化二氮的水平。当部署这种设备时，即使是低水平的一氧化二氮也可以进行许多测量，填补了我们对海洋环境中一氧化二氮测量（从而理解）的空白。这将是朝着一种传感器迈出的第一步，这种传感器有可能被部署在海上或无人驾驶机器人上，用于测量深海或极地海洋等危险和/或科学家难以进入的区域的氧化亚氮。从长远来看，通过将定制化学合成与海洋技术设计和工程相结合，该项目将建立一个新的化学解决方案管道，以解决与使用传感器测量海洋化学物质有关的其他关键问题。在机器人、系泊、浮子和漂浮物上使用传感器，也使测量的能源消耗和碳足迹比传统的水样收集（例如，与研究船或现场人员）和随后的实验室分析要低得多。因此，传感器的发展对于海洋科学在保持或扩展其能力的同时达到英国的净零目标至关重要。

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a critical greenhouse gas and a potent ozone-depleting agent. Knowing its environmental occurrence and fate is critical for climate change science but there is currently no chemical strategy to measure nitrous oxide in the oceans. This project aims to solve this problem by creating a custom-designed molecule that undergoes a chemical reaction with nitrous oxide, resulting in a detectable colour change. This process will then be adapted to work in complex environmental samples such as seawater. The process will be incorporated into a prototype mini-analyser device that is able to detect the colour change, and hence determine the level of nitrous oxide dissolved in the sample. When deployed such devices could make many measurements of even low levels of nitrous oxide, filling the gaps in our measurements (and therefore understanding) of nitrous oxide in the marine environment. This will be the first development step towards a sensor which can potentially be deployed in the sea or on unmanned robots, to measure nitrous oxide in areas such as the deep sea, or polar oceans, which are hazardous and/or hard to access to scientists. In the longer term, by combining custom chemical synthesis with ocean technology design and engineering, this project will establish a pipeline of new chemistry solutions to solve other critical problems relating to measurement of chemicals in the sea using sensors. The use of sensors on robots, moorings, floats and drifters, also enables measurements with a much lower energy use and hence carbon footprint than the traditional collection of water samples (e.g. with a research ship, or person in the field) and later laboratory analysis. Therefore, the development of sensors is essential for marine science to reach the UK's goal of Net Zero whilst maintaining or extending its capability.