A recent article in the Journal of Chromatography A, entitled Portable Chemical Detection Platform for On-Site Monitoring of Odorant Levels in Natural Gas, describes a detection platform developed to address the need for mobile solutions capable of providing quantitative analysis of mercaptans, which are compounds used to odorize natural gas. Odorization is crucial for identifying gas leaks and preventing accidents. The platform is designed to be portable, allowing for the extraction of mercaptans from natural gas, separation of individual mercaptan species, and quantification of odorant concentration. The hardware and software components of the platform are detailed in the full study, with a focus on enabling on-site analysis at the point of sampling.
The software is designed to be user-friendly, accommodating both skilled users and minimally trained operators. The platform demonstrated its capability by detecting and quantifying six commonly used mercaptan compounds (ethyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulfide, n-propylmercaptan, isopropyl mercaptan, tert–butyl mercaptan, and tetrahydrothiophene) at typical odorizing concentrations of 0.1–5 ppm. The study highlights the potential of this technology to ensure appropriate natural gas odorizing concentrations throughout distribution systems, contributing to improved safety measures.
The device is divided into 3 stacked layers in a custom acrylic housing.
Layer I: flow control, Layer II: analysis, Layer III: power. The parts are numbered as follows: 1 main power electronics; 2 device power supply; 3 silica gel trap; 4, 9, 21 2-way valves; 5 GC; 6 natural gas sample flow sensor; 7, 15 needle valve; 8 sample inlet; 10, 13 flow sensors; 11 sample pump; 12, 14 proportional valve; 16 filter; 17 nitrogen pressure regulator; 18 nitrogen inlet; 19 device control electronics; 20 differential mobility spectrometer detector; 22 ionization power electronics. Components are color coded – purple: flow, green: electronics, blue: analysis. Diagram courtesy of the authors*
In the study, researchers used a SilcoNert® 2000 coated sorbent trap tube (labeled #3 on the above image) to prevent the degradation of sulfur compounds with the trap housing during heating. Because the sorbent trap tube was coated with SilcoNert, there are many ways it can be beneficial to this self-proclaimed first-of-its-kind portable technology:
Coating the entirety of the metal hardware within the sample pathway will ensure that the sample integrity is intact throughout its journey. In this particular instance, we can infer that only the sorbent trap tube was coated. SilcoTek routinely coats other wetted parts that are common in ananlytical and monitoring equipment, like:
References:
* Fung, S., Pimentel Contreras, R., Fung , A. G., Gibson, P., LeVasseur, M. K., McCartney, M. M., Koch , D. T., Chakraborty, P., Chew, B. S., Rajapakse, M. Y., Chevy, D. A., Hicks, T. L., & Davis, C. E. (2023, June 18). Portable Chemical Detection Platform for on-site monitoring of odorant levels in natural gas. Journal of Chromatography A. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021967323003771?via%3Dihub#fig0005