A handheld mid-infrared methane sensor using a dual-step differential method for additive/multiplicative noise suppression

A miniature mid-infrared (mid-IR) methane (CH4) sensor system was developed by employing a wide-band wire-source and a semi-ellipsoid multi-pass gas cell. A dual-step differential method instead of the traditional one-step differential method was adopted by this sensor to tune measuring range/zero point and to suppress the additive/multiplicative noise. This method included a first subtraction operation between the two output signals (including a detection signal and a reference signal) from the dual-channel detector and a second subtraction operation on the amplitudes of the first-subtraction signal and the reference signal, followed by a ratio operation between the amplitude of the second-subtraction signal and the reference signal. Detailed experiments were performed to assess the performance of the sensor system. The detection range is 0-50 k ppm, and as the concentration gets larger than 12 k ppm, the relative detection error falls into the range of −3% to +3%. The Allan deviation is about 4.65 ppm with an averaging time of 1 s, and such value can be further improved to 0.45 ppm with an averaging time of 124 s. Due to the cost-effective incandescence wire-source, the small-size ellipsoid multi-pass gas cell and the miniature structure of the sensor, the developed standalone device shows potential applications of CH4 detection under coal-mine environment.