Remote gas sensing in full-scale fire with sub-terahertz waves

A remote gas sensor based on a continuous-wave sub-terahertz spectrometer with an operation bandwidth between 200 and 500 GHz has been developed. The performance of the developed system was investigated in a full-scale fire. The measured transmission spectra of smoke show the existence of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and water molecules, which were generated due to the combustion of a foam urethane block. The HCN content estimated from the absorption intensity agrees quite well with that obtained from the chemical analysis of gases sampled from the fire site. These results demonstrate the potential of the developed sensing system as a remote toxic gas sensor at disaster sites.