FTIR Fast Facts 4 (FTIR Open Path Technology Benefits)

Can you describe what Open Path means in terms of FTIR?

Yeah, the distinction is between a closed cell extracted system, which sniff s a little gas into a known volume and known path length and does the measurement there, versus just sending the infrared beam down, let’s say, a fence line and then analyzing anything that’s in that beam from one end to the other.

Now, obviously we don’t know where along that beam the chemical species might be, but we’re detecting and quantifying the species’ average over path. So we say we don’t know exactly where it is, but you have roughly this much.