Time Delay for Aerial Ammonia Concentration Measurements in Livestock Buildings 英文参考文献.docVIP

Sensors 2010, 10, 4634-4642;10.3390/s100504634 OPEN ACCESS sensors ISSN 1424-8220 /journal/sensors Article Time Delay for Aerial Ammonia Concentration Measurements in Livestock Buildings Hans Benny Rom * and Guo-Qiang Zhang Department of Biosystems Engineering, University of Aarhus, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Blichers Alle 20, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark; E-Mail: GuoQiang.Zhang@agrsci.dk * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: hansb.rom@agrsci.dk; Tel.: +45-89-99-18-72; Fax: +45-89-99-16-19. Received: 1 March 2010; in revised form: 29 March 2010 / Accepted: 15 April 2010 / Published: 4 May 2010 Abstract: Correct measurements of ammonia concentration in air still present considerable challenges. The high water solubility and polarity can cause it to adsorb on surfaces in the entire sampling system, including sampling lines, filters, valves, pumps and instruments, causing substantial measuring errors and time delays. To estimate time delay characteristics of a Photo Acoustic Multi Gas Monitor 1312 and a Multi Point Sampler continuous measurement of aerial ammonia concentrations at different levels was performed. In order to obtain reproducible data, a wind tunnel was used to generate selected concentrations inside and a background concentration representing the air inlet of the tunnel. Four different concentration levels (0.8 ppm, 6.2 ppm, 9.7 ppm and 13.7 ppm) were used in the experiments, with an additional outdoor concentration level as background. The results indicated a substantial time delay when switching between the measuring positions with high and low concentration and vice versa. These properties may course serious errors for estimation of e.g. gas emissions whenever more than one measuring channel is applied. To reduce the measurement errors, some suggestions regarding design of the measurement setup