Multi-gas ultrasensitive terahertz technology for environmental quality monitoring

加拿大采矿业对国内生产总值的贡献很大。新矿或现有矿的扩建须遵守《加拿大环境评估法》(CEAA 2012)以及其他省级法规。这种联邦和地方评估要求在这些恶劣的环境中使用气体传感器来检测NH3、CO、SO2、CO2、CH4、H2S等有害气体的存在，这些气体通常与采矿活动有关。然而，当前的多气体检测强加单个气体传感器的组合，这是一个有限的解决方案，因为它缺乏灵活性，并且严格要求对目标气体的先验知识。在这一战略项目中，我们打算开发一种新颖且紧凑的多气体超灵敏太赫兹系统，该系统利用单个传感表面来实时检测和量化多种气体，即使是在复杂的混合物中。此外，将设计一个特别的太赫兹探测器并将其整合到最终系统中，以准确地检索从传感元件收集的光谱信息。最终的装置将在气体传感方面表现出前所未有的性能，如高灵敏度(可能低至单分子)、高选择性(气体分子识别和量化)和实时操作。我们战略的清晰是与我们的工业合作伙伴(ACME和TeTechS)合作实现成功商业化的理想前提。我们的系统将成为监测和减少环境影响以及提高采矿活动效率的关键工具。最后，这项提议代表了INRS-EMT的学术成员和两家相关公司之间协同努力的完美范例，将石墨烯化学的最新研究与纳米工程等离子体表面的最新进展以及最先进的太赫兹时间域光谱系统结合在一起。该项目产生的专门知识以及至少3名博士和1名博士学位的培训将有助于保持加拿大在高技术部门的领先地位。

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.