On-site leakage locating of underground natural gas pipeline based on Ne tracer by miniature time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Natural gas pipeline leakage seriously endangers people's lives and properties, and there is an urgent need for onsite, rapid, and accurate locating the leakage point of the underground natural gas pipeline. Here, we added neon gas to natural gas pipelines as a tracer gas, and used a miniature time-of-flight mass spectrometry (mini-TOFMS) to on-site detect neon gas to quickly locate the leak point of underground natural gas pipelines. The mini-TOFMS used capillary tube sampling to directly analyze the leaked neon gas without sample preparation, and the analysis time of a single sample was only 60 s, which was less than one-seventeenth that of traditional off-line gas chromatography (GC) method. The mini-TOFMS exhibited a linear response range from 69 ppmv to 3.0 x 105 ppmv with the limit of detection (LOD, S/N = 3) of 19.0 ppmv. The correlation of GC and mini-TOFMS for Ne quantitative analysis was as high as 0.98. The performance of the newly designed method with the mini-TOFMS was demonstrated by on-site locating the underground natural gas pipeline leakage point in the experimental station. And leakage point of the natural gas pipeline, especially for those pipelines with different gas pressure buried under the same road, can be found more efficiently and accurately.

Automated summary

We introduced neon gas as a tracer gas in natural gas pipelines and used a miniature time-of-flight mass spectrometry (mini-TOFMS) for on-site detection to locate underground natural gas pipeline leaks. The mini-TOFMS employed capillary tube sampling to directly analyze leaked neon gas without sample preparation, with a single sample analysis time of only 60 s, significantly faster than the traditional off-line gas chromatography (GC) method. The mini-TOFMS showed a linear response range from 69 ppmv to 3.0 x 105 ppmv, with a limit of detection (LOD, S/N = 3) of 19.0 ppmv. The correlation between GC and mini-TOFMS for quantitative analysis of neon was as high as 0.98. The newly designed method using mini-TOFMS was successfully demonstrated in on-site locating underground natural gas pipeline leaks, particularly for pipes with differing gas pressures buried under the same road, providing more efficient and accurate results.