The development of multimode absorption spectroscopy (MUMAS) for multi-species detec- tion and its potential for process control or environmental monitoring is reported. The simultaneous detection of CO and CO2 is demonstrated in a proof-of-principle experiment for applications in industrially relevant gas species monitoring. The technique of MUMAS is extended to the near infrared in order to detect these and other industrially relevant species. A laser was designed and constructed to emit a multimode spectrum in the region of 1.57um to take advantage of the spectral overlap of the second vibrational overtone of CO and the combination band 3ν1 + ν3 of CO2. The laser consisted of a semi-confocal cavity employing an Er:Yb glass chip as the gain medium. The laser was pumped by a 1W laser diode at 980nm and emitted up to 30mW in a bandwidth of 180GHz. The laser emitted between 6-10 modes depending upon the selective cavity length. Mode spacings varied between 18GHz to 33GHz with an individual mode linewidth of less than 8MHz. The laser modes were simultaneously scanned using a piezo-electric transducer (PZT) in order to modulate the cavity length at frequencies between 1Hz and 10Hz. A system for linearizing the MUMAS spectra with respect to frequency was devised based on a transmission spectra of a confocal Fabry-Perot etalon. Refinements to the MUMAS fitting code were developed to improve the computational efficiency. An initial demonstration of MUMAS on a known gas mixture of CO and CO2 was per- formed. The ratio of CO:CO2 concentrations in the gas mixture was measured with an accuracy of 0.4% which was within the supplier’s quoted uncertainty. MUMAS is then applied to the detection of CO and CO2 concentrations in exhaust gas produced by a 1.3 litre 4-cylinder turbo-charged spark ignition engine. Relative and absolute concentrations were derived from MUMAS signals and values compared to measurements using a 4-gas analyser. Concentrations of CO and CO2 were measured using MUMAS to a precision of 0.17% and 0.23% respectively compared to less than 0.1% for the 4-gas analyser. Ratios of CO and CO2 were determined with a precision of 0.28 using MUMAS compared to 0.11 with the 4-gas analyser. The detection limit of CO was found to be 1486ppm in these circumstances. Finally a discussion is presented of potential improvements arising from wavelength mod- ulation spectroscopy and cavity enhancement techniques.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:595980 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Thompson, Alexander W. J. |
| Contributors | Ewart, Paul |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ebcb2031-1165-414e-88d8-69465bdaf291 |
Page generated in 0.0014 seconds