Sensitive detection of formaldehyde using an interband cascade laser near 3.6 μm

Abstract We report the development of a formaldehyde (H2CO) trace gas sensor using a continuous wave (CW), thermoelectrically-cooled (TEC), distributed-feedback interband cascade laser (DFB-ICL) at 3.6 μm. Wavelength modulation spectroscopy was used to detect the second harmonic spectra of a strong H2CO absorption feature centered at 2778.5 cm−1 (3599 nm) in its v1 fundamental vibrational band. A compact and novel multipass cell (7.6-cm physical length and 32-ml sampling volume) was implemented to achieve an effective optical path length of 3.75 m. A minimum detection limit of 6 parts per billion (ppb) at an optimum gas pressure of 200 torr was achieved with a 1-s data acquisition time. An Allan-Werle deviation analysis was performed to investigate the long-term stability of the sensor system and a 1.5 ppb minimum detectable concentration could be achieved by averaging up to 140 s. Absorption interference effects from atmospheric H2O (2%) and CH4 (5 ppm) were also analyzed in this work and proved to be insignificant for the current sensor configuration.

[1]  Larry G. Anderson,et al.  Sources and sinks of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde: An analysis of Denver's ambient concentration data , 1996 .

[2]  F. Keutsch,et al.  A laser induced fluorescence-based instrument for in-situ measurements of atmospheric formaldehyde. , 2009, Environmental science & technology.

[3]  Gregory R. Carmichael,et al.  Importance of formaldehyde in cloud chemistry , 1984 .

[4]  O. Axner,et al.  Theoretical description based on Fourier analysis of wavelength-modulation spectrometry in terms of analytical and background signals. , 1999, Applied optics.

[5]  R. Hanson,et al.  Calibration-free wavelength-modulation spectroscopy for measurements of gas temperature and concentration in harsh environments. , 2009, Applied optics.

[6]  Meehye Lee,et al.  Hydrogen peroxide and organic hydroperoxide in the troposphere: a review , 2000 .

[7]  Paul W. Seakins,et al.  A simplified apparatus for ambient formaldehyde detection via GC-pHID , 2003 .

[8]  R. H. Hunt,et al.  Wavenumbers, line strengths, and assignments in the Doppler-limited spectrum of formaldehyde from 2700 to 3000 cm−1 , 1979 .

[9]  Hejie Li,et al.  Extension of wavelength-modulation spectroscopy to large modulation depth for diode laser absorption measurements in high-pressure gases. , 2006, Applied optics.

[10]  Frank K. Tittel,et al.  Detection of formaldehyde using off-axis integrated cavity output spectroscopy with an interband cascade laser , 2006 .

[11]  A. Fried,et al.  Difference-frequency-based tunable absorption spectrometer for detection of atmospheric formaldehyde. , 2000, Applied optics.

[12]  A. O’Keefe,et al.  Cavity ring‐down optical spectrometer for absorption measurements using pulsed laser sources , 1988 .

[13]  E. Atlas,et al.  Signatures of terminal alkene oxidation in airborne formaldehyde measurements during TexAQS 2000 , 2003 .

[14]  Harold I. Schiff,et al.  Measurements of formaldehyde in the troposphere by tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy , 1989 .

[15]  Jingsong Li,et al.  A formaldehyde trace gas sensor based on a thermoelectrically cooled CW-DFB quantum cascade laser , 2014 .

[16]  M. Carras,et al.  Optical-feedback cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy with a quantum-cascade laser yields the lowest formaldehyde detection limit , 2013, Applied Physics B.

[17]  Jing Wang,et al.  An enrichment method to detect low concentration formaldehyde , 2008 .

[18]  M. Fraser,et al.  Field intercomparison of a novel optical sensor for formaldehyde quantification , 2000, Geophysical research letters.

[19]  R. Lindahl,et al.  Determination of sub-part-per-million levels of formaldehyde in air using active or passive sampling on 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine-coated glass fiber filters and high-performance liquid chromatography , 1985 .

[20]  Jing Wang,et al.  Silicon-based micro-gas sensors for detecting formaldehyde , 2009 .

[21]  D. Blake,et al.  Tunable diode laser measurements of formaldehyde during the TOPSe 2000 study: Distributions, trends, and model comparisons , 2003 .

[22]  Rong-Hua Ma,et al.  A self-heating gas sensor with integrated NiO thin-film for formaldehyde detection , 2007 .

[23]  O. Axner,et al.  Background signals in wavelength-modulation spectrometry with frequency-doubled diode-laser light. I. Theory. , 2001, Applied optics.

[24]  Agnes Perrin,et al.  Absolute line intensities measurements and calculations for the 5.7 and 3.6 μm bands of formaldehyde , 2009 .

[25]  Christoph Kern,et al.  Intercomparison of four different in-situ techniques for ambient formaldehyde measurements in urban air , 2005 .

[26]  Herwig Kogelnik,et al.  Off-Axis Paths in Spherical Mirror Interferometers , 1964 .

[27]  O. Axner,et al.  Background Signals in Wavelength-Modulation Spectrometry by use of Frequency-Doubled Diode-Laser Light. II. Experiment. , 2001, Applied optics.

[28]  M. Fraser,et al.  Ambient formaldehyde detection with a laser spectrometer based on difference-frequency generation in PPLN , 2001, Applied physics. B, Lasers and optics.

[29]  Q. Ma,et al.  Highly sensitive gaseous formaldehyde sensor with CdTe quantum dots multilayer films. , 2009, Biosensors & bioelectronics.

[30]  Riitta L. Keiski,et al.  Sub-ppb detection of formaldehyde with cantilever enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy using quantum cascade laser source , 2013 .

[31]  Gang Li,et al.  The HITRAN 2008 molecular spectroscopic database , 2005 .

[32]  Ralph P. Tatam,et al.  Formaldehyde sensor using non-dispersive UV spectroscopy at 340nm , 2014, Photonics Europe.

[33]  R. Atkinson.  Atmospheric chemistry of VOCs and NOx , 2000 .

[34]  Lars Nähle,et al.  Sensing of formaldehyde using a distributed feedback interband cascade laser emitting around 3493 nm. , 2012, Applied optics.

[35]  Anthony O'Keefe,et al.  Integrated cavity output analysis of ultra-weak absorption , 1998 .

[36]  N. Cade,et al.  Electrochemical enzyme sensor for formaldehyde operating in the gas phase , 1996 .

[37]  Frank K. Tittel,et al.  Detection of formaldehyde using mid-infrared difference-frequency generation , 1997 .

[38]  A. Clifford,et al.  Quantitative analysis by gas chromatography of volatile carbonyl compounds in expired air from mice and human. , 1997, Journal of chromatography. B, Biomedical sciences and applications.

[39]  P. Werle,et al.  The limits of signal averaging in atmospheric trace-gas monitoring by tunable diode-laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) , 1993 .