Greenhouse Gas Detection Part 2 of 2

Jeri explores several methods to detect greenhouse gasses including mass spectrum and mid-IR absorption.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Jeri Ellsworth
• greenhouse gases
• co2
• methane
• sensors
• global warming

[TheSolarmike]

Forest m mimms III if I remember correctly has made a CO2 detector some how with LEDs

[kinglonewolf104]

Two interesting videos (I watched part 1 first). You have some very cool toys :)

.

&eB

[shodanxx]

oh I should have watched the 2nd video before commenting then ...

[lexichronicle2]

gas lasers can be as small as your power requirements. for sensing, that's not a lot. a diode laser requires very sophisticated wafer lab equipment to produce. tunable is even harder. a spectroscope has an interferometer and half mirror in it. you don't need a continuous vacuum system to produce the spectral lines from a gas sample. the lamps in the road produce the sodium lines for a long, long time, and feature zero vacuum pump.

[alphabeets]

Jeri, you are too damn cool! Oh, and smart as hell!

[scottrharris]

The way to do this is with tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS). It's simple and reasonably cheap. Vacuum systems and gas lasers will never be small and cheap enough.

Look this video up on youtube. "MIRTHE Prototype Laser Spectroscopy Platform "

I can send you some papers on TDLAS and ultra-sensitive laser spectroscopy in general if you're interested.

In addition, you can go to spectralcalc to look at the spectra of species of interest.

[fronkenpoop]

Brilliant.

[lexichronicle2]

for CO2, could you not use a CO2 IR laser as the light source? Sams Laser FAQ has a ton of information on them. It would only need to be tiny and not even lase properly, so long as it produces a pure CO2 signature. digital ear thermometers have tiny zinc selenide windows on the sensor. I think there's one over the sensor on my camera's battery thermometer. if it doesn't need to lase, do away with the mirrors and make it a gas discharge? ionize with a marx stack? capillary tube bulb?

[morto360]

Very interesting stuff!!! Nice demo.

[kenatiod]

For good videos on the climate issues and atmospheric science see YouTube channels for potholer54 and greenman3610.