There is growing interest internationally on the effect of indoor air pollution on respiratory and cardiovascular health.
This was recognized in the recent EUWHO Parma Declaration on Environment and Health (2010) which identifies improving indoor air quality as one of its key goals. In a drive to reduce the energy input required to maintain comfortable indoor environments, building standards are demanding ever tighter control of unplanned or unmanaged, wasteful ventilation. Ventilation is the process of replacing stale, CO2 laden air with clean fresh air (high in O2 content from a clean outdoor ambient source). In winter this also means replacing warm air with cold and vice versa in summer.
Replacement of this stale air is an energy costly process; hence, many systems are being deployed to sensibly manage ventilation and recover as much energy as possible.
But the ultimate solution is for a smartsensor based system capable of monitoring temperature, humidity and CO2 levels which intelligently adjusts airflows as required. These smart Demand Controlled Ventilation (DCV) systems offer substantial savings in building heating and cooling costs.
Today deployment of DCV is mostly limited to large or commercial buildings primarily because CO2 sensors costing €50 each (just for the sensor function) are prohibitively expensive. This project has developed a prototype CO2 sensor based on low-cost, metal oxide gas sensitive materials. By combining state of the art nanotechnology and gas-sensitive metal-oxide materials with semiconductor manufacturing, ChipSensors has produced a low power, low cost sensor to meet this mass market demand.
For further details, see the ChipSensors Ltd. PDF
