Objective
The detection of hydrocarbon vapors is one of the main concerns in air monitoring for three markets segments :
* Home appliances (heating gas detector for instance)
* Industrial safety monitoring
* Atmospheric pollution monitoring
The objective of this project was to develop a low cost hydrocarbon sensor using a new approach : some polymers are swelling or shrinking when they are submitted to a partial pressure of hydrocarbon vapors.
The consortium has demonstrated the feasibility of a very low cost sensing technique based on quartz oscillators by designing and manufacturing a gas detector prototype. An extensive characterization campaign has evidenced the main advantages of this approach.
This technique, measuring the mass variation of a species when it adsorbs or desorbs ambient gas, is quite general and had been shown to be easy to implement, robust to temperature changes. It could be applied to many sensing devices, provided that a selective and reversible physico-chemical reaction could be found between a solid (preferably in thin layer) and the species to be measured.
Selectivity is the major issue of this type of sensor. During this contract, we have not found a polymeric species which is hydrophobic in order not to be affected by the natural changing humidity content of the atmosphere and still capable to absorb relatively large quantities of hydrocarbon vapors to achieve a good sensitivity.
This work, carried out in a good spirit of co-operation between a Spanish University lab and a French SME, would be a valuable starting point to introduce on the domestic market a gas safety detector. This low power, small size device is intrinsically safe and is easy to integrate in the "Home Systems" components now in the launching phase in high living standard countries, as remotely operated house hold appliances, central heating, etc... To create such a market opportunity, a new set of safety regulations about domestic use of natural gas should be enforced at the European level.
The technical work program was divided in the following main research tasks :
- Search for new polymer species presenting a good sensitivity to hydrocarbons
- Measure of the physical properties of these new polymers
- Development of sensor prototypes
- Experimental assessment of sensitivity and selectivity for various hydrocarbons
Additional effort was devoted to the definition of users needs, drafting of specifications for the sensor and its market opportunities.
The project teamed two partners :
- The Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnologia de Polimeros (CSIC, Madrid), dealing with the selection, the synthesis of polymers and the manufacturing of the sensing element.
- Bertin, (Aix en Provence) in charge of the project management and the design, the realization and the tests of the sensor prototype.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural scienceschemical sciencesorganic chemistryhydrocarbons
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciences
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfossil energynatural gas
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesenvironmental sciencespollution
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Topic(s)
Data not availableCall for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
78373 Plaisir
France