iw DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY SEMESTER I EXAMINATION 1998 COURSE: Degree in Analytical Science YEAR: 3 MODULE: ©8304 Instrumentation & Data Processing DATE: January 1998 TIME: EXAMINERS: Dr. D. Diamond Dr. R. Forster DURATION: 2 Hours INSTRUCTIONS: Answer THREE questions. Ne PAGE YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO This booklet contains three pages including coversheet Page | of 3 /CS304 Semester 1Answer THREE questions. 1. A feedstock that is rich in polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) is to be thermally cracked in a high pressure reactor at an optimum temperature of 800°C. A pump is used to continuously supply feedstock to the reactor and the time dependent concentration of PAH is monitored by emission spectroscopy with a complete spectrum being recorded every second, The temperature of the reactor is maintained using a variable power heating element, Discuss how RS232, IEEE and data acquisition cards might be used to develop a stand alone reactor system. 2. Answer ALL parts. [Marks: (a) 45%, (b) 45%, (c) 10%] @ —_ Drawa schematic diagram of the typical components found in an analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) integrated chip and explain how this cireuit digitises an unknown voltage by means of the linear search algorithm. (®) Outline the limitations of the linear search algorithm and explain how these are overcome by the successive approximation algorithm. © Calculate: @ the smallest resolution in volts of 12-bit ADC with an input voltage range of 0 to 1V and a maximum gain of 100. Gi) the number in the range 0 - 4095 which would be retumed by a 12-bit ADC for a 230 mV signal on an input voltage range of -5.0V to +5.0 V (gain = 1). Page 2 of 3 /CS304 Semester |Discuss the effect of developments in miniaturised integrated ‘optics, multi-channel detectors such as photodiode arrays, and cheap powerfull micro computers on UV-VIS spectroscopic instrumentation. How have these developments impacted on UV-VIS detection in HPLC? Explain how the following digital filters are implemented on an experimental data set: @ Moving Average; Gi) Savitsky-Golay Average; Ensemble Averaging. ‘Compare the effect of each filter in terms of feature enhancement, feature distortion, signal - to - noise improvement, and computational requirements. Page 3 of 3 /CS304 Semester |