What?

The SnapGas product will make gas sensing as easy as peeling off the colorimetric sensor tag/card, exposing it to the relevant ambience and reading the gas concentration by taking a snapshot with a digital camera.

During the project, different tags with different form factors will be implemented: cards, badges, stickers, … depending on the application.

Also, two color readout systems will be developed, a stationary system for bulk readout and a smartphone-based app for less intensive uses.

Why?

Work safety regulations stablish limits to the accumulated exposure to many toxic gases used in chemical industry, medicine, food industry, etc. The existing solutions to monitor the employee’s exposure are either expensive (e.g. individual electronic gas monitors) or impractical (e.g. require long analysis times after the measurements -weeks!). Monitoring & tracing the accomplishment with such regulations cause significant costs to our industry customers (e.g. equipment, employees off work, etc).

How?

We are developing a new monitor for the accumulated exposure to toxic gases, based on colorimetric dosimetry; this is a color change that develops following the persistent exposure to a target gas. The product consists of inexpensive disposable tags -a carton/plastic card with the colorimetric reagent printed on it- that can be easily wore -e.g. as an employee ID badge during the working time-. After their use, the tags can be immediately, and bulk read by a camera (e.g. smartphone).

Colorimetric indicators display dramatic color changes in presence of certain gases. In the project, 3 new specific indicators will be developed, to target:

• H₂S (hydrogen sulfide): a toxic subproduct in Oil&Gas, Waste Water and Chemical industry)
• NH₃ (ammonia): that hints towards fish and meat freshness in for Food industry
• CH₂O (formaldehyde): a risk in Environmental safety which can be hardly detected with other inexpensive methods.

These are three poorly solved application cases very much demanded by industry.

Thus, the SnapGas solution consists of a readout header (shaped as an app for smartphones or as a high throughput stationary camera) and a consumable tags/cards (single use and sensitive to the gas of interest).