Recipient Organization
Picarro, Inc.
(N/A)
Sunnyvale,CA 94085
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The rapid proliferation of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations has raised concerns about both health and environmental impacts of aerial emissions from animal production and waste management systems. The purpose of this project is to develop an ultra-sensitive instrument, based on cavity ringdown spectroscopy, that will enable researchers to continuously monitor hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, nitrous oxide, and methane under conditions normally encountered in livestock feeding and other agricultural facilities.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The rapid proliferation of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations has raised concerns about both health and environmental impacts of aerial emissions from animal production and waste management systems. Picarro proposes to develop an ultra-sensitive instrument, based on cavity ringdown spectroscopy, that will enable researchers to continuously monitor hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, nitrous oxide, and methane under conditions normally encountered in livestock feeding and other agricultural facilities. This high precision instrument will have these characteristics: a) the ability to continuously monitor H2S, NH3, N2O, and CH4 in air to a precision of 2ppbv, 1ppbv, 10 ppbv, and 10 ppbv respectively in a total measurement time of twenty minutes or less, b) capable of precisely monitoring H2S, NH3, N2O, and CH4 over a dynamic range greater than three orders of magnitude, c) robust enough for unattended field deployment for periods of half a year or longer, d) cost less than
$20,000 when manufactured in quantity, and e) not sensitive to dust and other particulate matter.
Project Methods
We propose to develop the ultra-sensitive four-gas instrument using cavity ringdown spectroscopy (CRDS), an emerging all-optical trace gas detection technique. Cavity ringdown spectrometers are superior instruments for making atmospheric measurements because they are both highly sensitive and highly selective, they are easy to operate, and they provide the possibility of providing a highly accurate absolute concentration measurement. Further, we propose to demonstrate the feasibility of engineering a robust CRDS instrument capable of field deployment with little or no maintenance or user intervention. In phase I we will demonstrate the technical feasibility of achieving our performance targets in the presence of potential airborne contaminants such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, and particulates.