CHannelized Optical System (CHANOS) for Marine Carbonate Detection

Inventors: Aleck Wang and Frederick Sonnichsen
IP: Publication No. US 2015/0346178 A1

Overview: Carbon dioxide levels in ocean water are directly affected by atmospheric levels. Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels acidify the ocean and affect marine chemistry and ecosystems. Precise and accurate determination of the marine carbon dioxide systems is essential to studying the marine carbon cycle and ocean acidification. Accurate measurement is obtained through simultaneous dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and ocean pH measurements.

Technology: The Channelized Optical System (CHANOS) uses a modular design capable of making spectrophotometric measurements of seawater DIC. The compact system contains DIC measurement systems and pumps to control reagent flow. A separate housing holds all the controlling electronics, light sources, and optical detection systems. As a result, the system can obtain near-continuous (~156s) measurements of DIC and can be modified to measure either pCO2 or pH. As a result, the system is versatile and suitable for deployment on mobile and stationary platforms, such as buoys, profilers, AUVs, and ROVs.