City Research Online

Abstract

It is important in the petrochemical industry that there are high sensitivity, high accuracy, low-power consumption, and intrinsically safe methods for the detection of propane gas, to provide early warning of potential explosion hazards in oil-gas storage and transportation. Tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) technology has the potential to provide an excellent basis both for early warning of explosion hazards and additionally to achieve precise, quantitative detection. In this paper, an approach to TDLAS detection of propane by using vertical cavity surface enhanced laser (VCSEL) technology, coupled with principle component analysis (PCA) is reported. In the evaluation carried out, the minimum detectable concentration could reach as low as 300 ppm and relative errors of the gas concentrations measured in this way were all below 5%. The experimental results obtained demonstrate that the use of VCSEL sources and PCA together solves difficulties often seen in the quantitative detection of propane by TDLAS at wavelengths close to 1684 nm. The approach also provides a strong experimental basis for the development of sensor systems based on TDLAS for propane and other combustible gas early warning of explosions, which makes it have real applicability in the petrochemical industry and oil-gas storage and transportation.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > Engineering
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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