GasSensEne: Early detection of ultra-low concentrations of GASes in complex healthcare and air quality environments through a gas SENSor enhanced by graphENE

由石墨烯增强的气体阵列传感器，例如由Altered Carbon（AC）生产的传感器，在氮氧化物（NOx）的非侵入性检测中提供了更高水平的稳定性，检测特异性和灵敏度，便携性和成本效益，这是各种疾病的生物标志物，也是地面臭氧背后的两个主要罪魁祸首。具体来说，感测碳氢化合物可以检测不同的健康状况-例如丙酮指示糖尿病，硫醇指示肝病;二甲胺和三甲胺指示肾衰竭，而缺乏异戊二烯指示肺癌。当汽油和柴油发动机燃烧燃料时，二氧化氮（NO2）等氮氧化物作为污染物释放到大气中，长时间吸入会导致气道炎症、哮喘患病率和发病率、癌症发病率、不良出生结果和死亡率（世卫组织，2013年）。NO2传感器在环境污染监测和医疗保健中有应用。然而，石墨烯基气体阵列传感器的生产商仍然面临的主要问题是开发具有高灵敏度的分析仪器的能力，气体检测分析过程中的选择性和低检测限。GasSensEne（通过气体传感器或石墨烯增强，在复杂的医疗保健和空气质量环境中早期检测超低浓度的气体）该项目是2019年1月至3月期间运行的A4 I第三轮迷你项目的延续。该项目将看到双方合作伙伴- Altered Carbon和国家物理实验室（NPL）-共同继续致力于工业研究，以进一步增强测试AC传感器检测NOx气体的能力的设置，以确认在上市前验证和确认测试期间发现的普遍性。解决这个问题将大大提高AC传感器制造和测试期间的生产力，在全系统实施的第一年估计可提高20%，并估计在第一年内将AC的利润提高约625，000英镑（2-3年内将提高1，250，000英镑）。此外，在每次测试期间能够容纳更多传感器的测试仪器（目前有8台设备，但正在努力增加这一数量）将通过提高制造能力和减少召回数量来提高AC的生产率，并提高NPL及其未来有兴趣使用这种新测试系统的合作者的生产率。此外，该测试设置的目标是还测试其他气体，包括硫化氢，二氧化硫，一氧化碳，二氧化碳，氢气和易燃碳氢化合物，AC旨在在不久的将来生产传感器。

Gas array sensors enhanced by graphene, such as those produced by Altered Carbon (AC), offer an increased level of stability, detection specificity and sensitivity, portability and cost-effectiveness in the non-invasive detection of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), which are biomarkers for various diseases and two of the main culprits behind ground-level ozone. Specifically, sensing hydrocarbons can detect different health conditions - e.g. acetone indicates diabetes, mercaptans indicate liver disease; dimethylamine and trimethylamine indicate kidney failure, and the lack of isoprene indicates lung cancer. Nitrogen Oxides, such as Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) is released into the atmosphere as a pollutant when fuels are burned in petrol and diesel engines, resulting in airway inflammation when inhaled for a prolonged period, asthma prevalence and incidence, cancer incidence, adverse birth outcomes and mortality (WHO, 2013). A NO2 sensor has applications in environmental pollution monitoring and healthcare. However, a major problem still faced by the producers of graphene-based gas array sensors is the ability to develop analytical instruments with high sensitivity, selectivity and low detection limit during gas detection analysis.The GasSensEne (Early detection of ultra-low concentrations of GASes in complex healthcare and air quality environments through a gas SENSor enhanced by graphENE) project is a continuation of an A4I round 3 mini projects run between January and March 2019. The project will see both partners - Altered Carbon and National Physical Laboratory (NPL) - jointly continue working on industrial research to further enhance the setup for testing AC's sensors' ability to detect NOx gases to confirm generalisability of findings during the verification and validation testing pre-market launch. Solving this problem will dramatically increase the productivity during AC's sensor manufacturing and testing by an estimated 20% in the first year of full-system implementation and is estimated to improve AC's profits by approximately £625,000 within the first year (and £1,250,000 within 2-3 years). Additionally, a testing instrument able of accommodating more sensors during each test (8 devices currently but endeavouring to increase this number) will increase productivity both at AC by higher manufacturing capacity and decreased number of recalls, and at NPL and its future collaborators interested in using this new testing system. Furthermore, the goal of this testing setup is to also test for other gases, including Hydrogen Sulfide, Sulfur Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide, Hydrogen and Flammable Hydrocarbons, that AC aims to produce the sensors in the near future.