Facile All-Optical Method for In Situ Detection of Low Amounts of Ammonia

Yuanchao Liu; Tristan Asset; Yechuan Chen; Eamonn Murphy; Eric O Potma; Ivana Matanovic; Dmitry A Fishman; Plamen Atanassov

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.101757

Facile All-Optical Method for In Situ Detection of Low Amounts of Ammonia

iScience. 2020 Nov 1;23(11):101757. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101757. eCollection 2020 Nov 20.

Authors

Yuanchao Liu¹, Tristan Asset¹, Yechuan Chen¹, Eamonn Murphy¹, Eric O Potma², Ivana Matanovic³, Dmitry A Fishman², Plamen Atanassov¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, National Fuel Cell Research Center (NFCRC), University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
² Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
³ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA.

Abstract

As a key precursor for nitrogenous compounds and fertilizer, ammonia affects our lives in numerous ways. Rapid and sensitive detection of ammonia is essential, both in environmental monitoring and in process control for industrial production. Here we report a novel and nonperturbative method that allows rapid detection of ammonia at low concentrations, based on the all-optical detection of surface-enhanced Raman signals. We show that this simple and affordable approach enables ammonia probing at selected regions of interest with high spatial resolution, making in situ and operando observations possible.

Keywords: Analytical Chemistry; Chemical Engineering; Chemistry; Electrochemistry.