Vehicle‐mounted mobile mid‐infrared high‐precision atmospheric ethane sensor system

Abstract

AbstractEthane (C2H6) is an important gas in environmental monitoring, especially in urban areas, and the development of vehicle‐mounted mobile C2H6 sensors is meaningful for high‐efficiency and wide‐range detection of C2H6 concentration levels. Based on tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy, a sensor system for the detection of trace C2H6 concentration in the atmosphere was developed using wavelength modulation spectroscopy. An interband cascade laser with a central wavelength of 3337 nm and a multipass gas cell (MPGC) with an optical path length of 26.4 m was used as core optical components. The pressure in the MPGC was optimized at 200 Torr, and such pressure was stabilized by a self‐developed pressure control system. The sensor system was compactly integrated into a standalone instrument with a dimension size of 52 × 33 × 28.8 cm3. The detection limit (1σ) was measured to be 3.45 parts per billion at an averaging time of 0.5 s. Forty‐eight‐hour field experiment and vehicle‐mounted mobile measurement of atmospheric C2H6 levels with concentration mapping were carried out on the Jilin University campus to validate the practical application ability of the system.