A MEMS-Enabled Deployable Trace Chemical Sensor Based on Fast Gas-Chromatography and Quartz Enhanced Photoacousic Spectoscopy.
Stefano ZampolliSandro MengaliNicola LiberatoreIvan ElmiLuca MasiniMichele SanmartinRoberto ViolaPublished in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) (2019)
This paper reports on a portable selective chemical sensor for hazardous vapors at trace levels, which combines a two-stage purge and trap vapor pre-concentration system, a Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) based fast gas-chromatographic (FAST-GC) separation column and a miniaturized quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) detector. The integrated sensing system provides two-dimensional selectivity combining GC retention time and QEPAS spectral information, and was specifically designed to be rugged and suitable to be deployed on unmanned robotic ground vehicles. This is the first demonstration of a miniaturized QEPAS device used as spectroscopic detector downstream of a FAST-GC separation column, enabling real-world analyses in dirty environments with response time of a few minutes. The main modules of the GC/QEPAS sensor device will be described in detail together with the system integration, and successful test results will be reported and discussed.
Keyphrases
- gas chromatography
- liquid chromatography
- tandem mass spectrometry
- mass spectrometry
- high resolution mass spectrometry
- solid phase extraction
- simultaneous determination
- gas chromatography mass spectrometry
- high resolution
- heavy metals
- emergency department
- single molecule
- optical coherence tomography
- healthcare
- image quality
- risk assessment
- social media
- computed tomography
- low cost
- photodynamic therapy
- electronic health record
- ionic liquid