High Sensitivity Monitoring of VOCs in Air through FTIR Spectroscopy Using a Multipass Gas Cell Setup

Abstract

Human exposure to Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and their presence in indoor and working environments is recognized as a serious health risk, causing impairments of varying severities. Different detecting systems able to monitor VOCs are available in the market; however, they have significant limitations for both sensitivity and chemical discrimination capability. During the last years we studied systematically the use of Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy as an alternative, powerful tool for quantifying VOCs in air. We calibrated the method for a set of compounds (styrene, acetone, ethanol and isopropanol) by using both laboratory and portable infrared spectrometers. The aim was to develop a new, and highly sensitive sensor system for VOCs monitoring. In this paper, we improved the setup performance, testing the feasibility of using a multipass cell with the aim of extending the sensitivity of our system down to the part per million (ppm) level. Considering that multipass cells are now also available for portable instruments, this study opens the road for the design of new high-resolution devices for environmental monitoring.

A compact AC-glow discharge-optical emission spectrometer for real-time detection of N2 and Ar in O2 with sub-ppm-level sensitivity

“…Currently, widely used comprehensive gas detection techniques are gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) 3 and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) employing multipass gas cells. 4 The detection sensitivity of GC-MS is ppb level with a detection time of several minutes and that of FTIR is sub-ppm to ppm level within a minute. They are intrinsically expert systems but are bulky and expensive.…”