Mapping the air in real-time to visualize the flow of gases and vapors: occupational and environmental applications.

Abstract

This article describes a new method for measuring and mapping pollutants in air in real-time which can be used for visualizing the flow of gases and vapors in both indoor industrial and outdoor environmental applications. This method uses open-path Fourier Transform Infrared (OP-FTIR) spectrometry and computed tomography for real-time mapping of concentrations of chemicals in air. These maps may be used to evaluate human exposures, source emissions and air dispersion models; thus, this method can be used for both industrial and environmental sampling. It is being developed using computer simulations, and chamber and field studies. Computer simulations used simulated test concentration data to create maps; the original maps of concentrations were compared with the tomographic reconstructed maps. In the chamber studies, tracer gas was released into the chamber and measurements from a tomographic system were compared with point sample measurements taken at the same time. When sulfur hexafluoride was injected in a stable flow field position in the chamber, the concentrations reconstructed by the concentration maps were within +/- 15.9 percent of the measured point samples; overall, they were within +/- 27 percent of the measured point samples. On a 12-foot by 14-foot grid of cells used to model the chamber, the average peak location error was within one foot. The peak location error refers to the error involved in locating the point of highest concentration in the plume. For the field study, field-generated tomographic maps were compared with concentrations estimated using the Industrial Source Complex-Short Term (ISCST) model. Fairly good correlation (R2 = 0.67) was found between the five-minute overall-average cell concentrations in the tomographic and ISCST model maps. Overall, the tomographic map concentrations over-predicted the ISCST model concentrations by 24 percent. Optical remote sensing and computed tomography shows promise as a method to produce spatially and temporally resolved two-dimensional concentration maps indoors and outdoors. These maps would provide near real-time visualization of contaminant generation, movement, concentrations, and emission rates for multiple chemicals simultaneously at low limits of detection.