An autonomous methane gas sensor on a silicon microchip

甲烷是一种有吸引力的能源。作为最简单、最轻的碳氢化合物，它燃烧干净，没有其他燃料中存在的长链碳氢化合物、硫氧化物或氧化亚氮的“汤”。作为一种能源，它释放的二氧化碳比煤少。甲烷是天然气的主要成分，因此对大部分国际能源工业都很重要。天然气在世界上许多地方用于发电和家庭供暖，许多司法管辖区已被要求从煤炭转向天然气。**虽然不太为人所知，但甲烷的温室效应比二氧化碳强70倍。它目前是全球温室效应的第二大贡献者，据信其在大气中的浓度自前工业时代以来已经翻了一番。快速检测天然气生产和运输设施的逸散性排放是未来努力最大限度地减少向大气中排放温室气体的关键部分。该提案旨在开发一种微型光学甲烷传感器的原型，该传感器体积小，价格便宜，足以形成一个监测系统，从而能够检测到大范围地理区域的甲烷释放。通过使用微电子学的标准程序将该器件集成到硅芯片上，大规模生产应该相对简单。其基本思路是利用所谓的微光学“环形谐振器”技术，通过温度稳定，用一个小而便宜的设备来检测低水平的甲烷。这项资助将允许阿尔伯塔大学的团队在甲烷传感的微光子学基础科学上工作，并将他们的结果用于开发一个原型，该原型将为坎贝尔科学公司解决一个重要问题，坎贝尔科学公司是加拿大环境监测和控制解决方案的领导者。

Methane is an attractive energy source. As the simplest and lightest hydrocarbon, it burns clean, without the**"soup" of long-chain hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides, or nitrous oxides present in other fuels. As an energy source,**it releases less CO2 than coal. Methane is the major component of natural gas and is therefore important to**much of the international energy industry. Natural gas is used for electricity generation and home heating in**many parts of the world, and many jurisdictions have been mandated to switch from coal to natural gas.**Although not so well-known, methane's greenhouse effects are ~70 times more powerful than those of CO2. It**is currently the second largest contributor to the global greenhouse effect, and its atmospheric concentration is**believed to have doubled since pre-industrial times. Rapid detection of fugitive emissions from gas production**and transportation facilities is a critical part of future efforts to minimize the release of GHG into the**atmosphere. The proposal aims to develop a prototype micro-optical methane sensor that would be small and**cheap enough to form a monitoring system that would enable the detection of methane releases over large**geographic areas. By incorporating the device onto a silicon chip using standard procedures in**microelectronics, it should be relatively simple to mass produce. The basic idea is to deploy so-called**micro-optical "ring resonator" technology with temperature stabilization in order to sense low levels of**methane with a small, inexpensive device. This Engage grant will allow the University of Alberta team to work**on the fundamental science of microphotonics for methane sensing and use their results toward the**development of a prototype that would solve an important problem for Campbell Scientific a Canadian leader**in environmental monitoring and control solutions.