MicroColGaSe (Monolithic MicroColumn Gas Sensor System: a system for portable low power high selectivity gas analysis) was an action aimed at the development and characterization of a novel microfabrication platform allowing the monolithic integration of a microfluidic separation microcolumn with a gas sensor fabricated with Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology. A range of new MEMS microfluidic enhanced sensors can emerge from this platform. The primary result of this action is an ultra compact, low power consumption, high selectivity gas sensing system-on-chip. This novel integrated system is meant to enable high selectivity in mobile gas sensing devices which are forecast to become part of the consumer market in lead applications such as IoT, healthcare, environmental monitoring.
Although MEMS gas sensors have been researched during the last 20 years and marketed in the last decade, their selectivity remains an intrinsic limit due to the nature of the detection principle. This action aimed at providing high selectivity MEMS gas sensors using a micro-column and micro-preconcentrator to pretreat the gas sample and obtain flow separation of its components. This is already achieved in complex systems which require multiple separate components to be connected, obtaining bulky and power consuming devices.
Main objective of this action was to enable monolithic integration of the main components of the above described system: gas sensor, microcolumn, and preconcentrator all in a single silicon chip. The dramatic advantages of this integration are in the cost, footprint, and energy efficiency. In particular, the extremely reduced footprint will make it possible to embed these sensors in consumer mobile devices such as smartphones and wearables.
