Air Monitoring by Spectroscopic Techniques offers scientists and engineers unique, state-of-the-art information on the latest, most promising laser and nonlaser-based spectroscopic methods used in the detection and analysis of air pollution and trace gases - data previously available only in scattered resources. The opening chapter on the problem of air pollution and monitoring includes comparisons of the various conventional methods now used for trace gas detection and analysis. In the next five chapters, leading experts in the field examine the basic characteristics, applications, and advantages and limitations of various spectroscopic, air-monitoring techniques, as well as the instrumentation involved in using each method and its future prospects. Numerous application examples further enable practitioners to compare the various techniques and help show them how and when to apply such methods as: differential optical absorption spectroscopy, light detection and ranging, photoacoustic spectroscopy, tunable diode laser spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Air Monitoring by Spectroscopic Techniques will prove to he an invaluable, one-stop reference for physicists, chemists, and engineers involved in trace gas analysis and detection environmental protection and in the development of environmental sensing instrumentation. It will also serve as an important graduate-level text for university courses in the environmental sciences.

In this volume, leading experts discuss the characteristics, advantages, limitations and future aspects of modern spectroscopic techniques for environmental analysis. They then demonstrate how these methods can be applied in order to trace gas detection. The contributors concentrate on the latest applications - both laser and non-laser-based - which offer advantages for air pollution and gas monitoring as opposed to more conventional methods. Numerous examples of applications illustrate the potential of the techniques described.