Natural gas composition analysis with Quartz Tuning Fork-based spectroscopic techniques

Petrochemical industry operations can be optimized detecting hydrocarbons in the gas phase. Laser-based spectroscopic sensors are well suited for this application since they proved to be highly selective and sensitive. We report on two different optical techniques for natural gas composition assessment, both implementing quartz tuning forks as sensitive elements: quartz enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy and light-induced thermo-elastic spectroscopy.