Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RESPAC (high REsolution Spectroscopy for Process AnalytiCs)
Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2022-04-30
The goal is to establish a new method of infrared spectroscopy for multi-species industrial process monitoring, propelling IRsweep’s current spectrometer instrument IRis-F1 from a scientific instrument towards an industrial process analysis instrument. This is enabled by a new driving/detection mode developed in the scope of the European flagship project Qombs (grant agreement No. 820419, https://www.qombs-project.eu/(opens in new window)). This detection mode expands the current unique selling proposition of the spectrometer (high time resolution and high brightness) to additionally include high spectral resolution. The current spectrometer is based on dual-frequency-comb spectroscopy, a nobel-prize winning spectroscopy technique that is being furthered in the scope of the flagship project.
This exploitation of European flagship project results will strengthen the competitive position of Europe in the analytical instrumentation business and can create employment. Users of the technology can harvest the benefits of more efficient chemical processes, which can lead to increased resource efficiency.
This exploitation of European flagship project results will strengthen the competitive position of Europe in the analytical instrumentation business and can create employment. Users of the technology can harvest the benefits of more efficient chemical processes, which can lead to increased resource efficiency.
In the first work package, user requirements were established, competing technologies in the optical domain and beyond the optical domain were evaluated – specifically chromatographic techniques. It was found that technology-wise, shorter hydrocarbons C1-C7 are a match for the proposed technology. Analytical tasks with even longer chains often feature a very large variety of compounds, for which infrared spectroscopy does not provide sufficient selectivity. The detailed findings of Work Package 1 are summarized in a confidential report.
Subsequently, feasibility was shown in work package 2, where measurements of gas phase hydrocarbons were taken to demonstrate the applicability of QCL dual-comb spectroscopy for measurement tasks of process analytical relevance. In the experimental setup, the beam from the IRis-Core emitter unit was directed into an IRcell-S4 multi-pass gas cell. The multi-pass cell increases the effective pathlength of the beam through the sample gas to 4 m while maintaining a small footprint and gas volume of only 31 ml. The pressure in the gas cell was reduced to 100 mbar to narrow down the absorption features of the gases. Results were analyzed in a multivariate fitting method.
Finally, the dissemination of the results was done in Work package 3, where the results were shown on three conferences and during a webinar. Dissemination on a trade show is also planned and a publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal is currently being drafted.
Subsequently, feasibility was shown in work package 2, where measurements of gas phase hydrocarbons were taken to demonstrate the applicability of QCL dual-comb spectroscopy for measurement tasks of process analytical relevance. In the experimental setup, the beam from the IRis-Core emitter unit was directed into an IRcell-S4 multi-pass gas cell. The multi-pass cell increases the effective pathlength of the beam through the sample gas to 4 m while maintaining a small footprint and gas volume of only 31 ml. The pressure in the gas cell was reduced to 100 mbar to narrow down the absorption features of the gases. Results were analyzed in a multivariate fitting method.
Finally, the dissemination of the results was done in Work package 3, where the results were shown on three conferences and during a webinar. Dissemination on a trade show is also planned and a publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal is currently being drafted.
New results are an improved understanding of the competitive landscape and a demonstration of the technology of "rapid sweep" for multi-species optical hydrocarbon sensing for process monitoring applications. Long term impacts require further integration and dissemination efforts of the results in to a marketable process monitoring analytical instrument, which can lead to job creation and improved efficiency of chemical and pharmaceutical processes for the users of the analytical instrumentation.