Air pollution remains one of the most significant environmental threats to human health, causing nearly half a million premature deaths annually across Europe. Expanding access to ubiquitous, real-time air quality (AQ) monitoring could substantially mitigate the impact of pollution. However, current monitoring systems largely depend on complex, stationary, and expensive equipment, typically costing several thousand euros, which limits their large-scale deployment.
At the same time, tackling climate change is a critical priority. Biogas production has been recognized as a key enabling technology for achieving the European Union’s 2030 greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets and offers strong potential to support Europe’s transition to net-zero emissions by 2050. Furthermore, biogas represents an important component of Europe’s energy diversification strategy, helping to reduce dependence on external energy sources. Nevertheless, biogas plant operators and manufacturers require significant advances in sensing technologies to improve process optimization, system control, and leak detection. Similar sensing solutions could also provide valuable monitoring capabilities for greenhouse gases in the global oil and gas (O&G) sector.
SYMPHONY addresses these challenges by developing an innovative sensing platform that combines multiple silicon photonics technologies with advanced silicon microelectronics. The project aims to enable dense networks of cloud-connected, low-cost (below €100), portable (5–80 cm³), and user-friendly smart sensors capable of simultaneous multi-gas detection for air quality monitoring and biogas production, paving the way for large-scale deployment in a variety of applications.
To achieve this vision, SYMPHONY will advance the state of the art in silicon photonics, neuromorphic circuits, artificial intelligence (AI), system integration, and packaging. These innovations will be combined with cutting-edge silicon microelectronics for ultra-low-power edge AI processing and interconnected sensor networks capable of spatially resolved monitoring, analysis, and predictive modelling.
The project focuses on the detection of: (i) gases identified by the European Environment Agency (EEA) as both major pollutants and contributors to climate change, including methane (CH₄, with a CO2-equivalent impact of 28–36) and nitrous oxide (N2O, with a CO2-equivalent impact of 265–298); and (ii) gases essential for biogas production processes, namely CH₄, CO2, and H2S. In addition, the exceptionally broad hyperspectral operating range of the SYMPHONY sensors will enable monitoring of other important gases relevant to agriculture, such as NH₃, and to the food and beverage industry, including H2S and NO2.
