Many industrial processes currently require accurate and sensitive monitoring of CO2 gas. To increase the sensitivity of CO2 detection, open-air photonic fibers have been proposed. Open-air photonic fibers have a hollow core allowing the intercalation of gas into the fiber, allowing for the amplification of measurement techniques like absorption or Raman spectroscopy to detect CO2 concentrations. We use conducted a variety of COMSOL based studies aimed at minimizing gas diffusion time throughout the hollow core. We investigate both pressure driven and diffusion based gas delivery methods, finding that both possess the ability to greatly reduce sensor response time. Preliminary experiments in a controlled environment validated the models and showed the ability to detect and control the uptake of CO2 in open-air photonics fibers. This lays the foundation of a distributed chemical sensing system, particularly important for monitoring well integrity for carbon capture and storage, providing early warning for an incoming well failure and potential CO2 leaking through it, potentially affecting proximal aquifers, a large public concern.
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