SPIE – Scientific Paper – Hydrogen Sulfide Detection

Authors: Andrea Zifarelli, Angelo Sampaolo, Pietro Patimisco, Marilena Giglio, Chenren Yu, Huan Zhu, Haiqing Zhu, Gaolei Chang, Fangfang Wang, Jianxin Chen, Lianhe Li, A. Giles Davies, Edmund H. Linfield, Li He, Tingting Wei, Hongpeng Wu, Lei Dong, Gangyi Xu, Frank K. Tittel, Vincenzo Spagnolo

N2-cooled THz quartz-enhanced photoacoustic sensor operating in pulsed mode for hydrogen sulfide detection in the part-per-billion concentration range.

ABSTRACT:

Many applications such as toxic gas detection or H2S monitoring in natural gas require operation in the THz spectral region, where gas species show distinct spectral “fingerprints” that can be easily discriminated by the gas matrix background absorption features. So far, continuous-wave THz quantum cascade lasers employed in quartz-enhanced photoacoustic (QEPAS) sensors required liquid helium-cooling systems.

In this work, we demonstrated the first liquid nitrogen-cooled THz QEPAS sensor for H2S detection operated in pulsed mode and mounting a spectrophone based on a quartz tuning fork with 1.5 mm prong spacing. A sensitivity level in the part-per-billion concentration range was achieved.