ABB's Enhanced Performance QC rackmount analyzers continuously measures ambient levels of greenhouse gases and air contaminants simultaneously in real time with data rates and flow response rates as fast as 10 Hz. As with all ABB analyzers, users can set up the instrument in minutes. Simultaneous measurements of CH4, CO2 and N2O can allow scientists to correlate the sources of emissions of these important greenhouse gases. The analyzers also simultaneously measures water vapor concentration. As a result, the analyzers report gas concentrations on a dry mol basis directly (accurately corrects for water vapor dilution and absorption line broadening effects) without the need for sample drying or empirical corrections.
The analyzer is designed for many demanding applications including trace-gas (air quality) monitoring (e.g., GAW stations), eddy-correlation flux measurements, and chamber flux measurements. The analyzer is unaffected by other atmospheric gases or changes in atmospheric pressure.
The “Enhanced Performance" packaging incorporates proprietary internal thermal control for ultra-stable measurements with unsurpassed precision, accuracy, linearity, stability and drift. Moreover, only ABB analyzers provide reliable measurements at concentrations more than 20 times greater than typical ambient levels. Furthermore, ABB analyzers report measurements over a wide range of ambient temperatures allowing users to easily record reliable data in the field.
The analyzer uses ABB's patented Off-axis ICOS technology, the fourth-generation cavity enhanced absorption technique, which employs a high-finesse optical cavity as the measurement cell. ABB's technology has many proven advantages over conventional first-generation cavity ringdown spectroscopy (CRDS) techniques. In brief, since the laser beam does not have to be resonantly coupled to the measurement cell (i.e. precise beam alignment is not critical), ABB analyzers are easy to service, and inherently robust thermally and mechanically. In addition, since ABB's technology can record reliable absorption spectra over a far wider range of optical depths (absorbance values) compared with CRDS, ABB analyzers provide measurements over a much wider range of gas concentrations. Finally, due to the ease and simplicity of recording and quantifying the measured spectra using ABB's Off-Axis ICOS, ABB analyzers display the entire absorption spectra to the user in real time allowing for immediate system diagnostics and performance validation.
The analyzer includes an internal computer that can store data practically indefinitely on its internal hard drive (for applications requiring unattended longer term operation), and send real-time data to a data logger through its analog and digital (RS232) outputs. The analyzer may be controlled remotely via the Internet. This capability allows the user to operate the analyzer using a web browser anywhere.