Detection of a solute injected into a gas phase optical spectrometer
AssigneeAerodyne Research, Inc.
InventorsJoseph R. Roscioli, Elizabeth M. Lunny, Joanne H. Shorter, Scott C. Herndon
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In various embodiments, improved techniques are provided for detecting and/or mapping a solute in a medium by injecting the solute as droplets into a heated, evacuated absorption cell (e.g., a multipass absorption cell) of a gas phase optical spectrometer (e.g., an infrared laser absorption spectrometer). The techniques may be applicable to a wide range of solutes in soil (e.g., hydroxylamine, nitrite, nitrate, etc.) involved in subsurface nitrogen cycling processes, as well as other solutes involved in other types of processes in soil or other mediums.
Claims20
A method for detecting and/or mapping a solute in a medium, comprising:
- extracting solute from one or more probes that are each arranged at a respective location in the medium;
- loading a solute sample from the extracted solute from each of the one or more probes;
- injecting each solute sample as droplets of liquid into a heated, evacuated absorption cell of a gas phase optical spectrometer, wherein the droplets evaporate internal to the absorption cell due to its heated, low pressure environment to produce a gas phase trapped sample in the absorption cell;
- using gas phase optical spectrometry to determine concentration from each trapped sample in the absorption cell;
- and
- outputting an indication of detected solute based on the determined concentration from each trapped sample or a map of detected solute based on the determined concentration from each trapped sample.
An instrument for detecting and/or mapping a solute in a medium, comprising:
- one or more probes configured to extract solute from respective locations in the medium;
- a sample injector configured to successively load a predetermined amount of solute into a sample loop from each of the one or more probes and inject each solute sample as droplets of liquid;
- a gas phase optical spectrometer having an absorption cell configured to receive the injected droplets of each solute sample, wherein the absorption cell is further configured to cause the droplets to evaporate internal to the absorption cell to produce a gas phase trapped sample in the absorption cell;
- and
- control electronics configured to execute software that controls the gas phase optical spectrometer to determine concentration from each trapped sample in the absorption cell and to output an indication of detected solute based on the determined concentration from each trapped sample or a map of detected solute based on the determined concentration from each trapped sample.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.