IR fiber optic chemical sensors for hazardous waste detection

Infrared fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy is a powerful tool for identifying various organic compounds in soils. Using this technique a mixture of benzene and TCE on sand was measured; peaks due to both compounds are readily evident and correspond to the peaks in the pure liquid. At low concentrations of diesel fuel marine (DFM) on sand the band depths scale linearly with respect to DFM concentration. As the DFM concentration increases, the plot of DFM band depth versus concentration becomes nonlinear.