I-Corps: Visible optics-enabled diagnostics for site-specific gas leak detection

Award ID: 2034698

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a technology for detecting leakage of harmful gases, providing billions of dollars in economic savings per year in addition to preventing the loss of human lives and increasing environmental hazards. Reducing unwanted gaseous chemical releases to the environment, e.g., leaks in the natural gas supply chain, will contribute to saving lives from exposure to hazardous gases and lessen carbon emission. The technology may prevent health issues for workers operating equipment in power plants, semiconductor manufacturing, and oil and natural gas industries, as well as limit gas leakages that result in potential downtime in the production cycle. In addition, multimillion dollar legal liabilities of associated (multinational) companies may be averted. This I-Corps project is focused on the translation of technology that is able to detect density changes in transparent media with off-the-shelf optical tools and a customized mathematical and software framework for image-processing. Refraction of visible light occurs when light passes across transparent media with dissimilar densities. The changes in density for a gaseous medium can arise due to several factors, e.g., variations in temperature, composition, and pressure fluctuations. The movement of fluid particles from the site of leakage once distinctly identified at different time instances, i.e., at different frames of a video recorded continuously in the field of view of the leakage location, facilitates the measurement of particle speed from one frame to the other using particle image velocimetry. Calibrating the results with a predetermined distance measure, the velocity of flow in the physical dimension is obtained. Using the area of the leakage spot, the volume flow rate of the leak is estimated rapidly. Unlike contemporary methods that use volatile organic compound sensors, infrared light, or thermal imaging, the proposed technology employs visible optics. The proposed diagnostics technology may detect gas leaks in real time and identify hot spots that require precise detection and maintenance, triggering rapid mitigation procedures. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Ruth Shuman