Experimental Study of the Light Source Characteristics for the NH3 Concentration Detection

Abstract Ammonia (NH3) is the most abundant alkaline gas in the atmosphere, and the cause of the majority of secondary particles in PM2.5 and the catalyst for the formation of atmospheric haze. Therefore, it is of great environmental significance to monitor NH3 concentration. This paper introduces the principle of NH3 concentration detection based on Lambert-Beer's law and sets up an experimental platform. Then the experimental study on the characteristics of Hamamatsu L9456-1 pulse xenon lamp for the NH3 concentration detection has been carried out. The fluctuation of light source, integral time of light source collection, average times and other practical problems occurred in the experiment have been studied carefully, and then the corresponding solutions have been put forward respectively. Finally, the most reasonable operating parameters of light source have been obtained. The experimental results have been applied to the absorbance detection of NH3 with different concentrations. The measurement results show that using the parameters obtained in the study to set the working index of L9456-1 pulse xenon lamp can obtain relatively accurate NH3 absorbance, which can lay a good foundation and be fully prepared for the entire detection system to measure the NH3 concentration accurately.