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The gasmotors are operating fueled by gases with relatively high (typically >30%) methane content. These motors are primarily used in e.g. power plants as an alternative solution of electric power generation. There are two fundamental types of gasmotors in the point of view of the fuel gas: they can be based on natural gas or biogas.

The gasmotors based on natural gas are primarily operated by power plants, or by large industrial companies. These consumers are primarily using natural gas from gas suppliers. The suppliers garantie the quality of the natural gas, i.e. the methane, ethane, propane, etc content of the gas. However, especially in wintertime, the quality of the gas can be periodically decayed, which could cause power fluctuation or in a worse case malfunctioning of the gasmotor. Therefore it is obvious the continuous control measurement of the natural gas content at the gasmotor. The main components determining the heating value of the gas, therefore the measurement of them is of crucial importance, are: methane, ethane and carbon-dioxide.

The typical values of the main components in the natural gas are: 65-95% methane, 2-8% ethane and <10% carbon-dioxide. The simple and fast photoacoustic natural gas composition analysing system developed in our laboratory is capable for the continuous measurement of the above mentioned components within their typical occurance range with a sensitivity of <1%. The response time of the system is typically 1 min.

Recently, the alternative sources of energy – for instance the biogas – are playing more and more important role. Gasmotors based on biogas are operating in the areas, where high amount of biogas can be produced. Such areas are, e.g. big agricultural firms, or dumps, where the deponia gas is used for feeding the gasmotor. Disadvantage of the biogas, that its content is very instable. Because of this instability, it can be occured that the methane content of the gas is below the limit needed for the operation of the gasmotor. Therefore the continous measurement of its primary components, as methane, carbon-dioxide or oxigen, is obviously of crucial importance.

Our two-laser based photoacoustic biogas analysing system measures the methane and carbon-dioxide content of the biogas with a sensitivity less then 0.5%, with an extremely fast response time of 20-25 seconds.

Based on the fast and accurate analysis of the gas content a regulation system can be designed to mixing the natural gas and the biogas in optimal ratio. As a consequence of its sensitivity and fast response time, our photoacoustic natural gas and biogas sensors are ideal solutions for an application in a gas mixing control and regulation system.