News Release

May 30, 2022.

The article, “Development of ball surface acoustic wave gas chromatograph for environmental monitoring in spacecraft and its application on the ground”, co-authored with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, was published in Japanese Journal of Applied Physics.

A paper co-authored with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been published in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics. Environmental gas monitoring inside the spacecraft is required for the safety of the crew in manned space exploration. Gas chromatograph (GC) is useful for the analysis of such various types of gas, but ordinary GC is large and it costs a lot to mount it on a spacecraft. In a joint research with JAXA at ​​the Japan Aerospace Exploration Innovation Hub, we prototyped a micro GC with a size of 10 x 10 x 10 cm and a weight of 1 kg or less using a ball SAW sensor as a detector. Then, using this prototype, we succeeded in separating and detecting various types of harmful gas components. In addition, we reported on the results of analysis of the aroma components of sake using a palm-sized GC developed as a ground-based application of micro GC.

Link：https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.35848/1347-4065/ac49fb