Development of miniaturised sensors for methane detection at trace levels for environmental monitoring applications

Methane (CH4) is the second most important greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere. Anthropic emissions of CH4 mainly come from the agricultural and energy sectors. The monitoring of CH4 low-level emissions is fundamental to detect possible CH4 leakages from industrial/energy plants, or from natural sources. The development and metrological characterisation of innovative sensors for detecting trace levels of CH4 is chal lenging and promising. At INRiM a research activity on miniaturised sensors for CH4 is ongoing, with support of Piemonte Orientale University “A. Avogadro” (UPO). The plasmonic amplification of the absorbance spectrum of CH4 (surface-enhanced infra-red absorption - SEIRA) in the proximity of metallic microstructured components is exploited and different SEIRA platforms are under characterisation by means of Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy. The experimental setup and some preliminary results concerning the development of gastrapping porous organic frameworks are presented in this work.