Gas concentration measurement by optical similitude absorption spectroscopy: methodology and experimental demonstration.

Abstract

We propose a new methodology to measure gas concentration by light-absorption spectroscopy when the light source spectrum is larger than the spectral width of one or several molecular gas absorption lines. We named it optical similitude absorption spectroscopy (OSAS), as the gas concentration is derived from a similitude between the light source and the target gas spectra. The main OSAS-novelty lies in the development of a robust inversion methodology, based on the Newton-Raphson algorithm, which allows retrieving the target gas concentration from spectrally-integrated differential light-absorption measurements. As a proof, OSAS is applied in laboratory to the 2ν3 methane absorption band at 1.66 µm with uncertainties revealed by the Allan variance. OSAS has also been applied to non-dispersive infra-red and the optical correlation spectroscopy arrangements. This all-optics gas concentration retrieval does not require the use of a gas calibration cell and opens new tracks to atmospheric gas pollution and greenhouse gases sources monitoring.