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Mr. Li Xintian, Marketing Director of Wuhan Shengnuo Instrument Technology Co., Ltd. was recently interviewed by a reporter from Environmental Protection Online, and responded to some of the issues of concern.

1、What is the opportunity for the company to enter this industry?

Remember the key words of the year 2013: haze and PM2.5, these two words have attracted the attention of the whole society since they were released, stinging everyone's nerves, and seriously affecting the quality of the atmosphere and people's quality of life. In order to strengthen the air environment management, the country began to upgrade the air pollutant emission standards, in which nitrogen oxides (NOx) is one of the main pollutants to be monitored, which together with hydrocarbons will cause photochemical pollution under the action of strong light, NOx emissions into the atmosphere is the main cause of the formation of acid rain, but also the main cause of the formation of haze and PM2.5, bringing serious harm to the ecological environment.

Currently, the mainstream NOx control technologies are low nitrogen combustion (LNB) and flue gas denitrification (FGD), which mainly include: selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR), selective catalytic reduction (SCR), and combined SNCR and SCR denitrification technologies.

Regardless of the technical solution, continuous online monitoring of ammonia is the key technology, because excessive pursuit of denitrification efficiency, excessive ammonia injection will greatly increase the problem of "ammonia escape" in the process of NOx treatment, and the escaped NH3 will not only make the fly ash in the flue gas easily deposited on the heating surface of the boiler tail, but also the flue gas NH3 will produce NH4HSO4 (acid ammonium sulfate) when it meets SO3, which will easily cause clogging of the air preheater and risk corrosion of equipment, increasing equipment maintenance costs. Ammonia emissions into the atmosphere can cause environmental pollution. Normally, ammonia fugitive value needs to be controlled below 5ppm, but with optimized design and adequate catalyst, ammonia fugitive can be controlled below 2ppm, thus, accurate detection of ammonia gas becomes a key point of technology.

After two years of dedicated research and development, the company has developed and mastered the core key technology based on TDLAS, and has achieved a leading position in laser gas detection technology in the near-infrared spectral range from 700nm to 2000nm, which can achieve a relatively short optical range of ppb level of detection sensitivity. We have launched a series of laser ammonia fugitive NH3 online monitoring systems, including: eLAS-100 extractable; eLAS100S in-situ; eLAS100P portable, etc.

The series of products have the following features: reliable long-range heating gas chamber design; ultra-low concentration measurement, resolution up to 0.1ppm; high-temperature sampling, coated gas chamber, sampling loss less than 0.1ppm/meter; calibration-free design, simple maintenance, low cost of use. After the market launch, it has been recognized by a large number of users and become the representative enterprise of ammonia escape monitoring industry.

2、 Facing the current development trend of environmental protection industry, how do you see the challenges and opportunities of the industry for the development of enterprises? In the future development, how do you plan to lay out the development of Shengnuo Instruments?

During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, from the national level, the Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to ecological environmental protection work, carbon peak, carbon neutral into the overall layout of economic and social development and ecological civilization construction, green and low-carbon development has become a general consensus, ecological civilization construction has entered a strategic direction focusing on carbon reduction, promoting pollution reduction and carbon synergy, and promoting the overall green transformation of economic and social development. The environmental protection industry is a typical policy-led industry, with the implementation of policies, the release of pollution prevention market demand, driving the scale of environmental protection industry continues to grow.

The introduction of various regulations has brought a good environment for environmental protection enterprises, many companies have joined here, and many innovative small and micro enterprises similar to Shengnuo Instruments have also come in.

Environmental protection-related industries want to sustainable and healthy development, we must solve the core key technology problems, solve the problem of the neck, from the introduction of absorption to independent digestion and research and development, to develop the market application of innovation.

The iLAS-800 is designed for open-space ambient air quality monitoring, with a range of hundreds of meters and a lower detection limit of ppb. The iLAS-800 is designed for open-space ambient air quality monitoring with a lower detection limit of ppb level in the range of hundreds of meters, which is especially suitable for field boundary ambient air monitoring in chemical parks, electrolytic aluminum fields and other industrial plants, such as HCL, HF, NH3, H2S and other field boundary gases. Compared with the extraction system, the open laser gas analyzer realizes the true sense of plant boundary ambient air monitoring.

The eLAS-500 laser trace gas analyzer is based on the principle of (TDLAS) technology, which scans and analyzes gas absorption spectra at specific wavelengths, and combines advanced technologies such as digital lock-in amplifiers and long-range gas chambers to achieve ultra-low concentration measurement of gases. It can realize high-resolution, high-precision, stable and reliable measurement of trace gases, which can meet the requirements of process analysis and environmental testing applications.

3、In your opinion, what technical breakthroughs and significant achievements have been made in the field of laser gas detection? In the face of the new situation, how should the technology develop? What should companies do in response?

For more than half a century, with the improvement and deepening of human understanding of the nature of light, the great progress of optical technology, especially the invention of the laser and the application of laser technology, the understanding of the interaction between light and matter has been fundamentally improved and developed. At the same time, people's awareness of environmental pollution problems has also increased, and modern techniques, especially optical techniques, have been used to study some environmental physicochemical phenomena and processes, and modern environmental spectroscopy has been gradually developed.

At present, differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), non-dispersive infrared (NDIR), tunable semiconductor laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS), laser radar (LIDAR), fluorescence spectroscopy, laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), optical cavity decay spectroscopy (LIDAR), and optical cavity ring-down spectroscopy (LIDAR) have been developed. Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy (CRDS), light scattering measurement technology, photoacoustic spectroscopy technology and other environmental optical monitoring technology system as the main body.

Facing the new situation, Shengnuo Instruments insists on R&D investment and follows the development trend of technology. At present, the laser gas detection technology in the near infrared spectral range from 700nm to 2000nm has achieved a leading position, and the detection sensitivity of ppb level has been achieved in the relatively short light range. There will be two breakthrough directions in the future, the first is to solve the problem of localization of key components, so that the whole industry chain of laser gas detection is free from the restriction of foreign imports, not to be stuck, the company is developing the fourth generation of cavity enhanced absorption technology - off-axis integral cavity output spectroscopy (OA-ICOS) technology. Compared with the traditional cavity decay (CRDS) technology, off-axis integrated cavity ICOS has the advantages of short measurement time and does not require expensive and complex components, it is simpler, easier to manufacture, more robust and cheaper. This year, we plan to launch the eLAS70 series, which can be used to monitor characteristic pollution factors such as H2S, NH3, HCl, HF, and HCN (hydrogen cyanide) with ppb-level accuracy. Second, the development of laser gas detection technology in the mid-infrared band. Molecular spectroscopy research shows that the absorption spectrum of small gas molecules in the mid-infrared is tens or even thousands of times stronger than that in the near-infrared, and under the same measurement conditions, the detection accuracy can reach the ppb level, which is tens of times higher than that of TDLAS in the near-infrared. The company will gradually expand the laser gas detection technology in the mid-infrared band and launch products based on the mid-infrared band to open up more applications in the industry.

4、What is your company's development profile?

In 2014, three entrepreneurs with more than ten years of experience in IR gas analyzer development, led by Mr. Jiang, after market research, understood that the market of denitrification ammonia escape was basically monopolized by imported instruments, but the use effect was not ideal, and chose this track, after two years of dedicated research and development and investment, at the end of 2015, we broke through the core key problems of TDLAS technology. In 2017, we also launched the online monitoring products such as hydrogen chloride elas200, hydrogen fluoride elas300, hydrogen sulfide elas600 series, etc. and keep broadening the product line. In 2019, the company's target market has shifted from the monitoring of gaseous pollution areas of pollution sources to the monitoring of pollutants in ambient air, and launched the Ilas800 series of products. In addition to the environmental protection field, the company has also developed online in-situ monitoring products for industrial processes, iLas700 series of products. The company will continue to base on research and development to preserve the technology leadership, and at the same time, close to the user, market-driven, to be a good market leader and experts in the niche market.

5、Please give an example of one of your products' technical innovation in environmental protection

Traditionally, ammonia fugitive online monitoring uses imported equipment and follows the way of in-situ installation and measurement on the flue. However, after our research in major power plants and customers, we found that in-situ measurement is more restricted by the installation conditions, and the flue gas working conditions and environmental parameters change more, so the actual use of the effect is not ideal. Therefore, we propose to use the CEMS sampling analysis method and optimize the design to make our product easy to install, reduce the cost of use, and easy to maintain. At the same time, the high adsorption and water solubility of ammonia gas requires a solution to the problem of sampling loss. In terms of hardware, we designed a high-temperature laser gas measurement cell and used the heat and humidity method to reduce the sampling loss, and in terms of software, we used the narrow bandwidth of the laser to eliminate the background gas cross-talk and improve the measurement stability by using the reference absorption peak comparison method in the limited bandwidth range. The actual use of the effect is obvious, that is, to achieve the needs of ammonia spray control, but also to meet the requirements of the environmental protection department dynamic control.

6、What are the applications of the company's products in other fields besides environmental protection?

The core competitiveness of the company is based on the mastery and application of TDLAS (Tunable Semiconductor Laser Absorption Spectroscopy) technology. At present, in addition to mature products in the environmental protection field, the company's products are widely used in industrial gas online analysis, especially in petrochemical industry, thermal power generation, iron and steel smelting, cement production and so on.

In the petrochemical industry, TDLAS-based laser gas analysis includes catalytic cracking regeneration flue gas analysis (O2, CO and CO2 for real-time control of catalyst regeneration reaction efficiency), semi-water gas analysis (O2, CH4 for safe monitoring and understanding of gasification reaction), ammonia to carbon ratio analysis (NH3, CO, CO2), etc.

In the thermal power industry, there are many parts that need to be monitored, such as boiler flue, combustion chamber, air supply unit, coal supply unit, chimney opening, etc. At the same time, there are many types of gases that need to be detected. In addition to these special requirements such as multi-gas detection, fast and accurate real-time detection, multi-point detection, etc., there are some general requirements for gas monitoring equipment for industrial products, such as operational stability and reliability in harsh operating environments (high temperature, high dust, high flow rate, strong corrosion, etc.). These detection links include: boiler flue (O2, CO2, reflecting coal combustion efficiency), before and after desulfurization/denitrification devices (SO2, NH3, NOx, reflecting the working of desulfurization/denitrification devices), etc.

In the steel smelting industry, TDLAS-based laser gas analysis is the choice for process gas analysis in the steel and metallurgical industry because it is free from background gas cross-interference, excludes the influence of dust and window pollution, and has a fast response time. Typical detection segments include: blast furnace top gas analysis (CO, CO2), converter gas analysis (CO, CO2), converter gas recovery control (CO), coal injection system safety control (CO), etc.

In the future, the company will also be involved in new energy and auxiliary medicine. The detection of trace hydrogen gas in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can improve the safety of new energy vehicles and reduce the possibility of auto spontaneous combustion. In addition to CO2 and other major components, human exhaled gas also contains a variety of impurities, and the type and content of these impurities can reflect the physiological health condition of the human body. Breath diagnosis technology is a multidisciplinary cross-emerging technology to diagnose diseases by measuring the content of impurities in human breath, which has the outstanding advantages of non-invasive, accurate, hygienic and convenient.

In addition, the relevant work and technical personnel of Wuhan Shengnuo Instrument Technology Co., Ltd. also introduced the relevant products in the exhibition of environmental protection online. In this online exhibition activity of environmental protection online, Wuhan Shengnuo Instrument Technology Co., Ltd. showed excellent professional knowledge, standard service attitude and bright performance.