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不仅对油气行业造成经济上的损害，而且对环境也有负面影响。为了解决从基础设施中检测逸出气体的困难，我们建议使用无人机（UAV）对天然气基础设施（包括管道和泵站）进行经济有效的空中监测。本研究的新颖之处在于采用独特的气体传感技术代替现有的激光或红外遥感设备。与其他传感器相比，所提出的技术的优点包括：i)对目标气体的小浓度（ppm水平）具有更高的灵敏度，ii)在复杂气体混合物中对目标化合物的选择性增强，iii)其可忽略不计的功耗，iv)其重量显着降低（<20g）。这些特点以及其低制造成本使所提出的气体传感器集成到无人机的一个很好的解决方案。即使需要保持无人机的视线，该系统仍然可以监测几百公顷的土地和几十公里的管道，每小时识别一个可能的泄漏位置。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，特别是在进入基础设施有限的情况下。我们的目标是建立在我们之前在电子鼻技术和基于无人机的遥感和监测应用方面的成就之上：i)制造一个微流体甲烷和乙烷探测器，包括气体传感元件和平流通道，ii)为探测器开发一个低功耗控制器和开关系统，iii)将探测器集成到多旋翼无人机中。我们将与Hetek Solutions公司合作，进行必要的现场测试以进行验证，并与该公司就该系统在石油和天然气行业的广泛商业应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.