Gas cameras can efficiently detect (visualize) gas leaks that are hazardous for the environment and the health of people. The principles of detecting gas using gas leak camera is based on the fact that some gases in selected spectral zones behave as selective radiators with low throughput and reflectivity (and high emissivity) and under certain circumstances they can be easily observed by a gas camera with sufficient temperature sensitivity and the correct spectral range. Special LWIR and MWIR gas cameras were developed to detect (leaks) of gases, including, for example, the quite problematic gas SF6, which is 24 000 x more hazardous for the environment than the greenhouse gas CO2. According to the spectral range of the gas camera and the filter, gases that are selective radiators in the particular spectral range are detected.
gas cameras to detect gases differ from thermal measuring cameras. In addition to a lens, detector, cooling part (if the gas camera detector is cooled) and electronics for processing the image, on the front part of the detector is a cooled optical band gate filter . This filter restricts the heating radiation wave lengths that the filter allows to act on the detector to narrow the band. This technology is known as spectral adaptation and the camera, in practice, is usually constructed (i.e. equipped with the particular filter) for the selected gas or group of gases (i.e., for example CO2, CO, SF6 etc.) and detecting other gases is considered as a certain type of "bonus". Of course, in practice we also come across other types of spectral sensitivity depending on the expected purpose of the camera.
This article comes from drone-thermal-camera edit released