Fast Flow Cavity Enhanced Ozone Monitor

Naturally occurring in the stratosphere, ozone plays a significant role in many atmospheric reactions, cloud formation, and is the key player in shielding harmful UV radiation. In the troposphere, it is a criteria pollutant produced via photochemical smog reactions, and is key in the formation of organic aerosols from VOCs. A better understanding on the distribution of ozone and its influences on cloud droplet formation is needed in order to better predict the radiation balance of the Earth in climate modeling studies. New instrumentation to provide sensitive, high throughput airborne measurement of ozone and other aerosol precursor gases is required to provide the necessary inputs in developing and refining accurate models of climate change. In this program, a resonant cavity optical sensor, using readily available components, will provide a significant advance in the development of high sensitivity instrumentation for airborne measurement of ozone or other gases important in climate change, where high throughput is critical for spatial resolution. Incoherent broad band cavity enhanced spectroscopy will be employed using UV LEDs to directly detect ozone. This configuration will allow for high sensitivity, a small foot print and high throughput, unlike conventional ozone monitors which use a long single pass absorption cell and filtered mercury lamps.

NASA benefits include the availability of rugged, low cost, airborne compatible instruments for the rapid and precise measurements of important gases such as ozone that will improve our knowledge for predicting and modeling atmospheric dynamics and climate change. This technology will allow for direct detection of Ozone at 1 ppbv levels (potential for sub ppbv) at 10 Hz. This will allow for high resolution ozone mapping from airborne platforms.

This methodology is also adaptable to Homeland Security for identification of chemical agents. Direct commercial application areas include environmental sensing and regulatory compliance, atmospheric research, and optical sensing. In addition, this technology has application for gas leak sensing of pipelines, fire detectors for commercial and private aircraft, combustor feedback control sensors, and process control sensors for energy and chemical production industries.

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