The National Research Council has concluded that ammonia is a major concern for air quality at global, national and regional scales. In the US, livestock operations are believed to contribute over 80% of the total emissions of ammonia. Specific interest in ammonia emissions from livestock operations stems from concerns with the negative impacts of high ammonia levels on air quality and environment. Ammonia is also a major source of fine particulate matter that poses direct threats to human health. The availability of low-cost, highly sensitive ammonia sensors to fill gaps in existing ammonia inventory data is critical to the understanding of the widespread impacts of high ammonia emissions. This proposed USDA SBIR Phase I project is concerned with investigating the applicability of our novel low-cost gas sensor technology based on quartz enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy using laser diodes to ammonia emissions monitoring in agriculture. The proposed sensor should be capable of operating 24-hours a day at outdoor monitoring stations, achieving precisions and accuracies of ~100-ppb. Sensor calibration will be performed not more than once every month to demonstrate feasibility of the proposed sensor architecture. The unit price of proposed sensor is not expected to exceed $15,000. If successful in Phase I, the sensor will be deployed at agricultural monitoring stations for extensive field testing in collaboration with researchers at the Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Amarillo, TX. Potential users of low cost ammonia sensors include researchers, government laboratories, livestock producers, consultants, and entrepreneurs who are pursuing new patentable methods in nutrition and manure management for livestock.
