Project description
New fire detectors can see the flames
Thousands of preventable fires each day in Europe cause losses in lives and cultural and natural heritage. But they are not detected in time. Commercial fire detectors go off when it is too late to intervene and control the fire. The EU-funded FIRESENSE project will develop a new sensor. Compared to incumbent vacuum tube technologies, it will be 1 000 times more sensitive, 100 times faster in response and five times lower in price, operating at lower voltages. It will use ultraviolet and infrared detection to maximise accuracy and eliminate false positives.
Objective
Billions of living creatures depend on the sensitivity of fire detectors to assure their safety. However, the available commercial fire detectors have a dangerous gap in that they are blind at the the ignition stage. Indeed, there are 5000 preventable Fire incidents each day in Europe which result in losses in lives and cultural/natural heritage.
Current commercial detectors follow the ISO834 standard, which is often too late for intervention and fire control.
Amongst existing fire detectors the fastest, most sensitive, and most remote are optical systems, using combined UltraViolet (UV) and InfraRed (IR) detection to eliminate false positives.
Nanovation has been working on UV photodetectors based on novel/biocompatible oxide materials since its inception. Today, it has demonstrated world leading solar blind detection with a more compact/cheaper/robust solid-state sensor which is, at least, 10 times faster and operates at lower voltages than incumbent vacuum tube technologies. This has been tested in an industrially relevant environment (TRL 6) for a fire detector and has already convinced potential industrial end-users. This breakthrough has been patent-protected and is based on a novel and proprietary manufacturing technology. Today, we are developing fast based on a business model driven by FIRESENSE’s further development and commercialization.
--------FIRESENS Key Winning Indicators----------------
A 5 times lower cost sensor with a factor of 1000 times better in SENSITIVITY
A factor of 100 times better in Response SPEED
Will IMPACT by Displacing current technology & Standards of fire detection
Modify the market (Low cost => wider deployment of safety sensor)
Interest of potential customer (see letter Annex 1) + bi-products already on sale
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
78117 CHATEAUFORT
France
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.