Analyzing Agents Linked to Global Warming
Air Pollution Prevention and Control Technologies among the Fastest Growing Segmentsby Bernard Tulsi
Widespread concerns over climate change backed by solid local, regional and international—United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) and the International Organization for Standards (ISO)—regulations and initiatives on air quality have spawned substantial worldwide demand for products and services that address air pollution.
The total air pollution mitigation market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.6% to reach $138 billion in 2012, up from $85.5 billion in 2007, and $59.3 billion in 2006, according to a BCC Research report authored by Sarah LoPrinzi, a senior partner with Utah-based IT and IP consulting outfit, Celtic Wolf Consulting.
Air pollution prevention has emerged as the largest market sector, worth some $46 billion in 2007, and at the 10.6% CAGR will reach $75.9 billion by 2012, according to the BCC report. LoPrinzi estimates air pollution control to be the fastest growing market in her forecast period—with a CAGR of 13.9%, the pollution control segment alone is expected to reach $36.2 billion by 2002.
The air pollution mitigation field has a broad range of players—companies with sizeable R&D budgets and several product innovations, smaller specialized players, government laboratories, and a service sector that specializes in testing, among others. Some of the key technologies and processes deployed in the field today include noxious air monitors, gas and smoke analysis, non-dispersive infrared analyzers (NDIA), gas chromatography (GC), mass spectroscopy (MS), ozone detection and radiation meters.
The far reaching and dire implications of unchecked global warming and pollution have intensified interest in the vigilant monitoring and analysis of atmospheric gases—such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide—that absorb sunlight. The belief that these greenhouse gases may in fact be increasing in concentration renders their careful and accurate analysis all the more urgent.
"This kind of analysis is commonly done with gas chromatography, with a number of specific detectors," says Mark Taylor, GC product manager at Shimadzu Scientific Instruments, which has designed a number of laboratory research grade GC systems for the quantitative analysis of greenhouse gases.
Taylor says that Shimadzu's systems for nitrous oxide detection use electron capture detectors (ECD), which make
use of a key physical property: the oxygen in nitrous oxide has a strong affinity for electrons. "This system is very selective and sensitive and allows nitrous oxide detection in the parts per billion ranges," he says.
Flame ionization detectors (FID) are used for the analysis of methane. "With these detectors, it is possible to measure to some 0.1 parts per million or a 100 parts per billion. Typically in the atmosphere there is 1.7 to 2 parts per million of methane gas, and researchers are finding that over landfills and areas where there are rotting materials, there are higher levels of the gas," says Taylor.
"Perhaps the biggest culprit among the greenhouse gases in carbon dioxide, which typically occurs at around 300 to 400 parts per million in the atmosphere. A simple thermal conductivity detector (TCD), which was developed way back in 1958, is used with our system for this purpose," says Taylor.
"Those are really the instrumentation and detectors of choice, and at Shimadzu we have automated most of these operations—all that is necessary is the injection of a sample into the instrument, which in turn will do the analysis and generate a detailed report of the compounds under investigation," says Taylor.
He says that Shimadzu uses one of its middle-of-the-line GC systems (GC 2014) for this application because of its versatility, and the relative ease of combining it with the different detectors.
Taylor notes that the major users today are government agencies, such as the United States Geological Surveys (USGS) and university research laboratories, especially the earth science and related divisions, which have a strong interest in global warming questions. "We are definitely seeing an increase in the demand for these products," he says.
Commenting on future prospects in the field, Shimadzu's Taylor says, "What we are looking to do is further automate the process in our systems. For instance, we can put all the samples on one system. This will allow researchers to collect samples and transfer them to a vessel that can be set up on an auto-sampler machine, which will make the injections automatically. Customers are already asking for more automation."
"There is little doubt that this area will grow. More studies will be done on trends in the atmosphere at different locations. I believe this upward market trend will continue for us," says Taylor.
Meanwhile, Phil Stremple, environmental industry marketing manager at Agilent, believes that the industry's leading solution for ambient air analysis and greenhouse gases for global warming solutions is a GC-MS approach, which couples Agilent's 7890 GC with its 5975 mass spectrometer (MS). "GC-MS has really taken over from straight GC with other detectors," says Stremple.
"The advantage that the MS brings is that you could selectively look at the targets being analyzed and get a very sensitive measure or you could identify them positively and quantify them accurately," says Stremple.
Agilent has enjoyed a strong position in environmental testing—air, water and soil—historically, according to Stremple. He says that unlike water quality testing, which has been done extensively throughout the world for some time now, air quality testing, especially with respect to greenhouse gases is an emerging area of interest, and the level of sophistication varies markedly in different parts of the world.
"Here in the Americas, the most common analytical platforms are the GC-based and the GC coupled with MS. At the front end of that are devices for the collection and handling of samples. One of most widely used methods entails collecting the gas samples in an evacuated, encapsulating gas canister," says Stremple. One of the leading providers of canister sample collectors, among other technologies, is California-based Entech Instruments.
Another top player in the air testing area is UK-based Markes International, which makes and sells thermal desorption (TD) instrumentation to test air—ambient, indoor and workplace—and industrial emissions. German instrument maker Gerstel, which operates its Caton Research Center in Baltimore, Maryland, also offers sampling instrumentation based on thermal desorption as well as other technologies.
Stremple acknowledges that all the leading instrumentation suppliers offer the GC-MS but noted that, "Agilent just happens to be the market leader." He says that Agilent's customers in the Americas are primarily contract environmental testing laboratories, the regulatory agencies, such as the EPA or state environmental agencies among others, and in industry, where a substantial amount of environmental testing is required.
With respect to the demand for analytical instrumentation for greenhouse gases, Stremple says, "It has not even started to ramp up yet." He noted that environmental legislation at various levels will have a profound impact on this market.
In recognition of the need for consistency and accuracy in the testing greenhouse gases, researchers in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources (LAWR) at the University of California, Davis assessed the performance of four commonly used instruments from different suppliers in measuring carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.
"The instruments were all used in field-scale greenhouse gas emissions research, which was part of a multi-disciplinary study on carbon sequestration potential in California agriculture systems," says Amy King, outreach analyst, UC Davis, and one of the researchers on the project.They included the photoacoustic multi-gas monitor model 1312 (PAM) from INNOVA Air Tech Instruments, a Li-6262 infrared gas analyzer (IRGA) from LI-COR Biosciences, an Agilent HP 6890 gas chromatograph with an electron capture detector (GC-ECD) and Qubit System's S151 infrared CO2 gas analyzer, according to King.
"The comparison work, which was spearheaded by Jason Bartlett, a graduate student, assessed the instruments on precision, accuracy, range, consistency, cost and convenience of use in the field as well as in the laboratory," says King.
The comparison determined that all the instruments, including the lower cost models, performed within acceptable levels of precision, accuracy and consistency. The lower cost Qubit system was found to be highly portable and attractive for field measurements of carbon dioxide, though not for laboratory applications. The moderately priced Li-Cor instrument was deemed attractive for carbon dioxide measurements in both the field and laboratory.
With respect to the PAM device from INNOVA, which is capable of handling several gases, the team noted that, "The multi-functionality of this machine accompanied with its high degree of precision and accuracy make it desirable for both field and laboratory analysis; however, the higher cost/error index can be a consideration if budgeting concerns out-weigh specificities."
Analytical instrumentation giant Thermo Fisher Scientific provides the air quality analysis market with its gas filter correlation technology among others. Mike Nemergut, marketing director of Thermo Fisher's Air Quality Instrument Division, says that the company's gas filter correlation technology was developed in the 1980s to test ambient gas and for stack carbon monoxide measurements at power plants, among other applications.
"Our focus has always been to look for specific pollutants in the atmosphere. Our largest customer is the power generation industry, where our instruments are used to measure pollutants at the source," says Nemergut.
The company's most updated gas filter correlation device is the 48i model, which is built around the principle that carbon monoxide absorbs infrared radiation at a wavelength of 4.6 microns. The 48i uses an exact calibration curve to accurately linearize the instrument output over any range up to a concentration of 10,000 ppm, according to Nemergut.
This state-of-the-art gas analyzer succeeds earlier versions and offers advanced features including an ethernet port and flash memory for increased data storage. "The improvements on the latest version of the device greatly increase its serviceability," says Nemergut.
Thermo Fisher has major market share for gas analysis in the power generation industry, and over the years has made inroads in the petrochemical and metallurgical areas. "Our company has a global focus," says Nemergut, adding that it sees as an attractive area of expansion, "the cost conscious Asian market."
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