Michael Kent Cueman

Gas filter correlation technique applied to in-situ monitoring of nitrogen monoxide (NO) in industrial exhaust

An in situ gas filter correlation spectrometer is applied to measure gas emission in smoke stacks. Experiments were performed at a simulated stack with NO at parts per million level for various elevated temperatures. A line-by-line spectroscopic computational model, originally developed at NASA Langley Research Center, was applied to the analysis. This paper summarizes recent development work at GE CRD and GE Reuter-Stokes to understand and to improve the sensitivity and efficiency of the analyzer for in situ monitoring nitrogen monoxide (NO) in the fossil fuel-fired power plants. The model calculation agreed very well with the experimental results. Special consideration was given to analyzing the detector response and light source effect on the performance of the system. The report concludes with a discussion of several design improvements and their potential impact on the signal to noise ratio and, therefore, the NO detection sensitivity.