Project description
Revolutionary separation technology enables ultra-sensitive real-time air analysis
The presence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in ambient airborne vapours is integral to life on earth. However, these are invisible and largely unknown in the daily human experience despite their impacts on health, environmental quality, safety, and security. The radical vision of this EU funded GIDPROvis project is to visualise the molecular environment in augmented reality with multiple inexpensive sensors for live chemical measurements based on two innovations. These are the separation of VOCs in air using chemical reactions and the fragmentation of VOCs in strong electric fields to enable a new era in chemical separation, detection and identification. Designed with interconnectivity to the 5G network and the Internet of Things in mind, and with consideration for impacts of chemical information overload on human psychology, the compact system will support the real-time analysis and display of our invisible world of chemicals in air even at very low concentrations.
Objective
Two original breakthrough technologies of Gas Ion Distillation (GID) and Sequential Ion Processing (PRO) provide live visualization (vis) of volatile chemicals in ambient environments giving humans access to a molecular world heretofore unseen. Molecular auras in GIDPROvis are delivered by small, portable GIDPRO analyzers based on high speed separation of ions derived from individual chemicals and their identification using an emerging generation of ion analyzers. In GID, chemicals are separated as gas ions through reaction thermochemistry, replacing classic separations based on physical properties. This is seen as a revolution or a paradigm shift as “new chromatography” making columns and stationary phases obsolete. In PRO, ions are sequentially processed using emerging discoveries of fragmentation of gas ions in strong electric fields. Structurally significant information in fragment ions permits chemical identifications informing a central data hub and enabling live display of molecular auras. Certain chemical properties, such as toxicity and reactivity, are integrated to “fit the goals, tasks, and needs of individual users” for effective information flow with the human-machine system. While GIDPROvis is principally technology driven, aspects of emotional responses of humans to massive access to chemical information, impacts from these perceptions, and human psychology will be explored in simulated, controlled visual experiences of chemical auras. Our aim is to launch a fourth generation of methodology for chemical analysis aligned intrinsically to 5G and IoT communication with miniaturized, ultra-low detection level, live data analyzers to detect and identify chemicals in complex matrices.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringinformation engineeringtelecommunicationstelecommunications networksmobile network5G
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetinternet of things
- social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical transitionsrevolutions
- natural scienceschemical sciencesphysical chemistrythermochemistry
- engineering and technologychemical engineeringseparation technologiesdistillation
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
00014 Helsingin Yliopisto
Finland