This paper presents a highly sensitive, energy efficient, and low-cost distributed methane (CH ) sensor system (DMSS) for continuous monitoring, detection, and localization of CH leaks in natural gas infrastructure, such as transmission and distribution pipelines, wells, and production pads. The CH sensing element, a key component of the DMSS, consists of a metal-oxide nanocrystal functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotube mesh, which, in comparison with the existing literature, shows stronger relative resistance change while interacting with lower parts per million concentration of CH . A Gaussian plume triangulation algorithm has been developed for the DMSS. Given a geometric model of the surrounding environment, the algorithm can precisely detect and localize a CH leak as well as estimate its mass emission rate. A UV-based surface recovery technique making the sensor recover ten times faster than the reported ones is presented for the DMSS. A control algorithm based on the UV-accelerated recovery is developed, which facilitates faster leak detection. 4 4 4 4
