15th Conf on Biometeorology and Aerobiology and the 16th International Congress of Biometeorology

Tuesday, 29 October 2002: 3:45 PM
Ammonia Analysis by Ion Mobility Spectroscopy
Richard Pfeiffer, National Soil Tilth Lab, Ames, IA
Poster PDF (69.0 kB)
The role of ammonia both directly and indirectly in human health has received considerable attention over the past few years. Agriculture is the leading source of ammonia but techniques for its measurement are very cumbersome. Common methods involve passing air through a device coated with dilute acid to trap the ammonia. The ammonia is eluted from the device for analysis by ion chromatography or other spectroscopic techniques. The removal of ammonia from air takes several hours to achieve ppbv levels associated with ammonia emissions. Chemiluminescence is an alternative method but is an indirect method involving the subtraction of two numbers to arrive at a value for ammonia. Ion mobility spectroscopy (IMS) is a totally automated, continuous instrumental time-of-flight technique that requires no liquid reagents and has been demonstrated for the monitoring of ammonia in cleanrooms at low ppbv levels. The data presented in this talk will demonstrate the use of IMS for measuring ammonia from swine confinement buildings, manure and anhydrous ammonia applications to crop lands, flux measurements, and other agricultural situations.

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