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How toxic is Paris? European project tackles the issue

How toxic is Paris? European project tackles the issue

Technology News |
By eeNews Europe



Around mid-March, the foggy atmosphere was reported to contain over 180 micrograms of PM10 particles per cubic metre (particulate matter smaller than 10 micrometers in diameter such as soot emitted by vehicles, heating systems and heavy industry).

Of course, these particles are only the visible part of the chemical soup that city dwellers have to endure and the list of exhaust gases, solvents and other hazardous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) known to have adverse effects on our health or recognized as plain carcinogens spans hundreds of molecules.

Now, indoor air quality (IAQ) is reportedly worse than that of external air due to the concentration of organic VOCs often emanating from the buildings’ construction materials and office furniture, all confined into tight spaces. This is aggravated by inadequate ventilation and the fact that most people spend 90% of their time indoor, leading to the so called Sick Building Syndrome (the occupants experiencing discomfort, irritations or generic illness).

 

The European Lung Foundation estimates that respiratory illnesses cost Europe 102 billion€ per year (17.7 billion related to Asthma), and according to the World Health Organisation’s European figures, the Sick Building Syndrome alone (affecting work efficiency and absenteeism) could cost from 0.8 to 1.7 billion euros per year.

 

Currently, monitoring outdoor and indoor quality relies either on expensive industrial instruments (for a comprehensive analysis of gases) or on simple and low-cost humidity and CO2 sensors with limited scope. Alternatively, on-site sampling and in-depth laboratory analysis has to be performed regularly, costing several hundreds of euros each time.

Clearly there is room for improvement, and a large market to be served with low-cost multi-analyte sensors. Under the 3-year IAQSense European project, 10 partners from five countries will tackle this issue, aiming to integrate multiple sensing technologies at silicon level into one wirelessly connected module.


Launched in September last year, the 5 M€ IAQSense research project (of which 3.5 M€ is funded by the European Community´s 7th Framework) hopes to come up with a multi-analyte sensor about two orders or magnitude cheaper than current lab or industrial-grade solutions.

The device would combine three proven technologies to simultaneously monitor volatile organic compounds, trace chemical health hazards such as pesticides, fertilizers or NOx, and identify biological respiratory hazards.

Such an integrated sensor would deliver real time information concerning the environment, offering a permanent and fine monitoring of all gas and volatile pollutants, either at fixed places (at home or in the office) or in a mobile environment (as a smartphone add-on).

The granularity of the information could be used to better understand indoor air quality dynamics, optimising building designs and models, enabling the precise mapping of contaminants across all sorts of spaces (including outside), and ultimately managing health risks.

According to project coordinator, Claude Iroulart from Efficience Marketing, it is conceivable that such sensors could be integrated into construction materials to continuously monitor indoor air quality and couple the data to ventilation and cleansing strategies.

Iroulart splits the total available market for such sensors in Europe into different vertical application domains, the biggest by far being construction (both residential and commercial), followed by automotive (monitoring passengers’ compartments and cabins in cars and aircrafts), security including checkpoints and cargo screening, and health (mostly breath analyzers).

The figures run into tens of millions of smart gas sensing units for a potential European market worth 400M€/year. Even fulfilling a small percentage of the serviceable available market (renovation and new installations) is an attractive proposition, possibly worth 120 M€/year for one member of the consortium producing and selling such sensing microsystems.

Of course, establishing more precise European air quality monitoring standards could push these figures further. Then IP licences are another option to go beyond a single company’s volume limitations.


 

Three technologies will be investigated for integration into these smart sensors, a spectrometer on chip, a functionalized tip field-effect transistor (FET), and a molecule traces detector using piezo-cantilevers. The IAQSense partners will develop the set of sensors, its integrated electronics and wireless communication, then validate them with a set of the most common molecules present indoors.

The spectrometer on chip, dubbed Integrated Mobility Spectrometer, features an on-chip ionizer and collects ions by surface adsorption. When the device is electrically biased, the equally spread ions are collected on one side. Reversing the bias moves the ionised molecule to the other end. With different surface mobility, each type of ionised molecule has its own signature time of arrival. The concept has already been proven to detect various molecules present in air at part per billion levels.

 

The functionalized tip FET relies on a 3D-shaped field effect transistor featuring a protruding flexible tip. The detecting nano-transistor is integrated on the silicon-tip, with a flexible channel size that can be modulated through backside substrate biasing (250nm down to 5nm).

This in effect changes the sensitivity without cost-intensive nanometre-resolution lithography.  Combined with a functionalization layer, this “transistor on the tip” sensing device would be used to detect bio-chemicals such as isoprene, mould, fungi, bacteria and other bio-pollutants.

The third type of sensors to be integrated relies on nanostructured and functionalized piezo-cantilevers, in effect nanomechanical resonators whose resonant frequency shifts can be read out to identify adsorbed molecules (depending on their mass for a fixed resonator geometry).

The new read-out approach under investigation is said to achieve unprecedented levels of sensitivity and could detect traces of toxic or hazardous compounds such as explosives, below 1 part per trillion.

The different sensor types in a given sensing node could be tailored for the specific markets described earlier. For example, in residential buildings the sensing heads would be capable to detect a limited set (shown in table 1) among the most frequent and dangerous VOCs identified by the French Indoor Air Quality Observatory (OQAI). This set could then be extended.

 Table 1: some of the most frequent and dangerous VOCs that could be targeted in a first development.

 

Together with project leader Efficience Marketing (EM), other partners involved include ID MOS SAS (FR), CEA (FR), EELEO (FR), FSRM (CH), Nano Analytik GmbH (DE), Acciona Infraestructuras (ES), Facet (BG), Microsystems Ltd (BG) and French-German research Institute of Saint-Louis (FR).

 

Visit IAQSense at www.iaqsense.eu

 

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