ISO 9001:2015 CertifiedQuality management system · SGS certificate US23/00000276 · valid to June 2029
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Environmental · Industrial
Greenhouse gases, pipeline leaks and fuel contaminants are invisible, patchy and fast. Mid-infrared lasers read them directly, molecule by molecule, at parts per billion, ten times a second, from a tower, a drone or a quarter-inch gas line.
The fingerprint region
Molecules absorb mid-infrared light when their bonds stretch and bend. Each species absorbs at its own set of wavelengths, so a laser tuned to one line sees that gas and nothing else. Tap a molecule to see where it lives and which of our laser modules reads it.
SMARTFARM program · NitroNet
ARPA-E funds high-risk energy technology with transformational potential. Under its SMARTFARM program, NitroNet set out to build an autonomous, season-long nitrous-oxide monitor for working farms: mid-infrared lasers, sensitive detectors and passive reflectors, running 24/7 without getting in the farmer's way. IMS is a funded partner on the team, contributing plug-and-play mid-infrared hardware.
Crop agriculture is the main U.S. source of nitrous oxide, about 4 % of all U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, and it comes out of the ground in patches that change by the hour. With Princeton University and ARPA-E funding, IMS helped build NitroNet: tower-mounted lasers that fire across the field to passive reflectors, mapping emissions continuously with no one on site.
Measured flux, not modeled estimates, is what carbon-credit programs and fertilizer decisions need.
The same measurement, shrunk to fly. A 1.6 kg open-path sensor rides a commercial drone, samples the air through an exposed optical path and streams data wirelessly, mapping plumes that towers cannot reach.
A long open-path beam along a pipeline or around a well pad sees a leak the moment its plume crosses. Because the same laser reads ethane, the reader can tell pipeline gas, which carries ethane, from cattle or wetlands, which do not.
Traces of water, carbon monoxide or sulfur ruin fuel-cell stacks. Today they are checked with gas chromatographs that are large, costly and need skilled staff. Our analyzer, developed with Princeton University and Shell, measures several contaminants at once from a quarter-inch line, with an internal reference cell that recalibrates it automatically.
Counterfeit drywall, flooring and upholstery can release hydrogen sulfide and formaldehyde for years. A wall- or line-mounted analyzer reads them at parts per billion in factories, warehouses and finished buildings, before people get sick or vehicles ship.
One central laser and detector, a ring of passive reflectors: every beam is a sensor with no power or electronics at the far end. A release crossing any path lights that segment, and crossing paths point to the source.
Who we work with
Environmental sensing at IMS grew out of years of work with Princeton University's atmospheric-sensing group, now carried forward by EcoFluxNet, Inc., a company founded to commercialize accurate detection, quantification and mitigation of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Infrared lasers and HgCdTe detectors designed and made in Princeton.
Open-path and UAV trace-gas sensing; joint ARPA-E SMARTFARM grant.
Optical platforms for greenhouse-gas detection, quantification and mitigation.
Hydrogen-purity patent with Shell and Princeton; NPL certification courtesy of BP.
More applications
Mid-infrared spectroscopy · IMS with SRI International
IMS builds the system, the software and the application. SRI International builds the lasers and detectors with us in Princeton. Tell us the molecule, the matrix and the setting.
ISO 9001:2015 CertifiedQuality management system · SGS certificate US23/00000276 · valid to June 2029