Scottish Sensor Systems Centre

GSS and UWS Awarded Prestigious Royal Society Grant To Develop Enhanced Performance Gas Sensors For Use In Medical Applications

Gas Sensing Solutions (GSS) Limited and University of the West of Scotland’s Thin Film Centre have been awarded a prestigious Royal Society grant to develop optical filter technology for use in a novel carbon dioxide (CO2) gas sensor, aimed at medical capnography applications.

The £159,094 project, High performance integrated Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) optical filters for NDIR sensor applications, will investigate the use of additional optical components/filters to improve the ability of the gas sensors manufactured by GSS to distinguish between different gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and anaesthetic gas nitrous oxide.

This partnership brings together world-leading expertise from within Scottish industry and academia. GSS manufacture market-leading unique patented low-cost/fast-response CO2 sensors (trademarked as SPRINTIR™) for a wide range of applications. Optical filter expertise based in the UWS Thin Film Centre will be crucial in developing the additional novel optical components incorporated into these gas sensors.

The primary aim will be to develop high performance optical filters utilised within GSS SPRINTIR™ sensors for use in medical capnography applications, which enable monitoring and diagnostics of exhaled CO2 gas during anaesthesia. Enhanced gas monitoring capability using such optical filters would also have potential impact on a range of other applications such as industrial safety, automotive, recreational sports and environmental monitoring.

Dr Des Gibson, Chairman & CEO of GSS, commented: “The project provides key technology input from world-class optical filter design/manufacture capability at UWS, combined with existing GSS gas sensor technology. The project offers potential to extend and enhance product performance, opening up access into new and commercially lucrative global markets.”

Dr Stuart Reid, academic lead for the project and Lecturer of Physics at UWS commented: “We are delighted to have received this award and to be working with Gas Sensing Solutions. The sensors manufactured by GSS are truly world-leading, utilising unique patented mid-infrared technology, developed and manufactured here in Scotland.”

In addition to the grant from Royal Society, this research has also received sponsorship from the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) to fund a PhD Studentship to work on this project. Aspects of the research will be collaboratively linked with the Institute for Gravitational Research at the University of Glasgow and researchers at Stanford University, US.