Alicat Whisper Used In Arctic Methane Emissions Monitoring

Methane makes up around 10% of all greenhouse emissions. It comes from either ‘diffuse sources’ or ‘point sources’.

Diffuse generally originate from sources like farm animals, while point emissions are traceable to a particular source like industrial locations. The other main source of point emissions is the estimated 9,000,000 sq. miles of Arctic permafrost.

This permafrost carries the frozen remains of animals and plants that froze prior to decomposition, trapping the carbon. The current estimate as to how much carbon is presently trapped inside the permafrost is a staggering one and a half trillion tones. With the effects of climate change very profound, the permafrost is melting at an alarming rate and releasing massive amounts of this previously imprisoned carbon as methane.

Carbon dioxide is twenty eight times less potent than methane, so converting methane into carbon dioxide is an incredibly efficacious way to try and slow down global warming. With arctic temperatures having risen nearly 3.5 °c over the last couple of centuries, this is becoming a top priority.

A team in the Artic is using an portable Alicat Whisper mass flowmeter as part of their project to collect, then measure the concentration and flow rate of methane, before converting to carbon dioxide through combustion. The Alicat Whisper MWB can calibrate the field based flow measurement devices with a high accuracy rate. Also, because of Alicat’s start-up technology, the portable Alicat Whisper mass flow meter is immediately ready to get to work the second it’s deployed as it offers a <1 second typical warm-up time.

Additionally the sensor response time is less than one millisecond (<1 ms) and the fully user adjustable typical indication response time is typically 127 milliseconds.

In August 2021 they tested this new methane capturing technology at an Arctic lake. The results were startling, and the levels of natural gas in the lake were so high it was described as ‘a jacuzzi’.

The ultimate goal for the project is to be able to use the methane they capture to be used in the direct generation of electricity.

Alicat MWB portable mass flow meters offer users up to 18 hours battery life with a monochrome screen or 14 hours with a colour TFT. Both are fully rechargeable via the micro USB power adapter. Alicat MWB portable mass flow meters are available with full scale flow rates from 0.5 SCCM through to 1000 SLPM.