In Situ Oil–Gas Separator Enabled Carrier-Free Photoacoustic Sensing of Acetylene

Highlights: What are the main findings? A real-time photoacoustic spectroscopy system, integrated with a custom-designed multilayer oil–gas separation membrane, was developed for sensitive acetylene detection in transformer oil. The proposed system demonstrates a rapid response and high accuracy in continuous, in situ monitoring of dissolved gases, outperforming conventional off-line methods. What are the implications of the main findings? The new approach enables timely transformer fault diagnosis, enhancing the reliability and safety of power equipment. This work lays a foundation for future development of compact and efficient online dissolved gas analysis (DGA) solutions for industrial applications. In this work, a carrier-free photoacoustic spectroscopy system is developed for the detection of trace acetylene gas in insulating oil. The photoacoustic cell was integrated with an oil–gas separator, allowing dissolved gases in oil to be introduced into the cell through free diffusion. The oil–gas separator is a custom-fabricated AF2400-coated ceramic membrane, and its spin-coating process was carefully designed to enable rapid oil–gas separation and achieve high film flatness. Using a resonant photoacoustic cell and a low-noise lock-in amplifier, the sensitivity of the system was improved to 6.90 mV/ppm, with a repeatability error less than 1.65%. Calibration experiments demonstrated that continuous detection of dissolved gas in oil could be achieved, with a response time T₉₀ of less than 72.5 min. Compared to traditional photoacoustic spectroscopy, the continuous measurement capability of this method is expected to enable earlier fault diagnosis, thus having greater potential in industrial fields.