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

该项目由气体传感解决方案公司牵头，与兰开斯特大学合作，旨在开发和成熟必要的技术和产品，以便在国内环境中部署低成本、多污染和安全危险的气体传感器并进行实时反馈。新冠肺炎疫情提高了人们对环境的认识。污染对环境和我们的福祉都有破坏性的影响。污染导致室内空气质量差，与许多健康问题有关，如肺病、心脏病和中风。二氧化硫、一氧化碳、二氧化碳等污染物，以及甲醛和苯都被认为会导致肺癌。在新冠肺炎危机期间，许多人被要求在家工作，这提高了雇主对员工拥有有效的危险气体(甲烷)安全监控系统的意识。雇主需要采取实质性和新的措施，确保家庭作业环境安全和高效。为了减少这些风险，在家庭中广泛部署空气污染和安全监测系统是非常可取的。市场上现有的产品不能满足这些要求。为了在国内市场取得成功，设备需要能够低成本地大规模生产，监测多种污染物和安全危险，并适合电池供电的无人值守操作。现有的几种技术能够测量部分或全部这些污染物和安全危险，但由于成本、尺寸和电力要求，没有一种技术适合国内使用。基于气相色谱和质谱学的产品体积庞大且过于昂贵，电化学传感器结构紧凑但寿命有限，不能同时检测多种污染物且响应速度慢，而光学光谱学可以紧凑但过于昂贵。其他技术如投射器是有效的，但耗电量太大或必须定期更换。该项目旨在开发新一代污染与安全传感器，该传感器成本更低，结构更紧凑，功耗更低，能够对多污染物进行实时监测，并可在国内环境中使用。这将通过使用两种将在该项目中开发和成熟的先进技术来实现：超亮发光二极管(LED)和非色散红外(NDIR)扩散技术。GSS和兰开斯特大学将利用其在LED和传感器制造方面的专业知识来交付该项目。先进的LED将利用GSS已经完成的研究，创造新一代低成本、低功率传感器。GSS和兰卡斯特大学将利用他们在坎伯诺尔德和兰开斯特的现有分子束外延(MBE)设施来设计和建造新一代LED。GSS已经成功部署了使用NDIR技术的商用二氧化碳气体传感器，并将扩展其他污染物和危险气体传感器的工作波长。这一新一代气体传感器的开发将使其在国内应用中得到广泛的“即用即用”部署。

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.