CORDIS provides links to public deliverables and publications of HORIZON projects.
Links to deliverables and publications from FP7 projects, as well as links to some specific result types such as dataset and software, are dynamically retrieved from OpenAIRE .
Exploitable results
The main objective of the project was to develop a new concept of middle infrared (MIR) fibre optic sensors for organic species monitoring in aquatic environments to replace expensive equipment currently in use. Further the present discontinuous sampling technique should be substituted by continuous on line monitoring. MIR optical fibres and polymer membranes for analytes enrichment enable IR-spectroscopy detection of chlorinated hydrocarbons and pesticides in remote locations, in real time, and even multiplexed.
Numerous versions of unique evanescent MIR-fibre and hollow waveguide sensors have been designed, fabricated and tested in combination with Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometers, tunable carbon dioxide lasers and tunable diode laser (TDL) spectrometers. Optimizing the choice of polymers for analytes enrichment in fibre coating and using a sparking technique for analytes enrichment via vapour phase, the detectivity of sensors was drastically enhanced from earlier results. New technologies of MIR-fibre extrusion and fibre coating by polyethylene, polyisobutadien, Teflon and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)-chloroparaffin have been developed. Two versions of innovative sparking devices have been designed, fabricated and successfully tested during the project.
Optical losses of MIR-fibres were halved due to extrusion process improvement (from 0.8-1 dB/m to 0.4-0.5 dB/m at 10 µm. Two basic versions of polymer coated MIR-fibre sensors were developed for FTIR-spectroscopy detection of analytes in water. The detectivity of MIR-fibre transmission cells and hollow waveguide sensors for continuous monitoring was drastically improved by analyte enrichment via vapour phase with sparking devices. Using a carbon dioxide laser the limit for TCE detection was 0.1 mg/l for transmission and hollow waveguide cells.
Although the accumulated experience allows the team to improve detectivity further in the future, the results listed above are already substantially better than reported achievements worldwide. On the basis of the project results, a compact, field-type fibre-optic device could be developed to meet the growing need for effective environmental pollution monitoring.
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