Ultra-low power and low-cost pollution and hazardous gas sensors to support the well-being and safety of home workers

This project led by Gas Sensing Solutions (GSS) in partnership with Lancaster University aims to develop and mature the technologies and products necessary to deploy low cost multi-pollution and safety hazard gas sensors with real-time feedback within a domestic environment.

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the awareness of our environment. Pollution has a damaging impact on the environment and on our well-being. Pollution causing poor indoor air quality has been linked to many health problems such as lung and heart disease and strokes. Pollutants such as SO2, CO and CO2, as well as formaldehyde and Benzene are thought to cause lung cancer.

During the COVID-19 crisis, many people have been asked to work from home and this has heightened the awareness of having effective hazardous gas (methane) safety monitoring systems for employees by their employers. Employers need to take substantive and new steps to ensure the homework environment is safe, and productive.

To mitigate these risks, wide deployment of air pollution and safety monitoring systems in the home is highly desirable. These requirements are not met by existing products in the market. To succeed in the domestic market, equipment needs to be capable of low-cost mass production, to monitor multiple pollutants and safety hazards, and to be suitable for battery powered unattended operation.

There are several existing technologies available capable of measuring some or all of these pollutants and safety hazards, but no one is suitable for domestic use due to the cost, size, and power requirements. Products based on gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy are bulky and too expensive, electrochemical sensors are compact but have a limited lifetime, are not capable of simultaneous multi-pollutant sensing and are slow to respond, whilst optical spectroscopy can be compact but is too expensive. Other technologies such as pellistors are effective but consume too much power or have to be replaced regularly.

This project aims to develop a new generation of pollution and safety sensors that are a step change lower cost, more compact, lower power and capable of multi-pollutant monitoring with real-time feedback for use in the domestic environment. This will be achieved through the use of two advanced technologies to be developed and matured in this project: super-bright light emitting diodes (LEDs) and non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) diffusion techniques.

GSS and Lancaster University will use its expertise in manufacturing of LEDs and sensors to deliver the project.

The advanced LEDs will leverage research already done by GSS to create a new generation of low-cost, low-power sensor.

GSS and Lancaster University will utilise their existing molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) facilities in Cumbernauld and Lancaster to design and build this new generation of LED.

GSS has already successfully deployed commercial CO2 gas sensor using NDIR techniques and will extend the operating wavelength for other pollutant and hazard gas sensing. The development of this new generation of gas sensor will enable wide "fit and forget" deployment in domestic applications.