Cheap priced chemical sensors to detect toxin gas
Posted on: 05/Jul/2016 5:33:18 PM
Researchers from MIT have created cheap priced chemical sensors that will let people detect traces of meagre amounts of toxic gases present. Smartphones and wireless devices are used for the same.
With this, the researchers believe to develop an inexpensive radio frequency identification badges that people can use for their safety and security. These can get used for soldiers in battlefield for detecting chemical weapons like choking agents or nerve gas and for people who work in an environment prone to hazardous chemicals, according to researchers.
Such equipment used by the soldiers are way too higher in their weight and they find it tough to sustain it, according to Timothy Swager, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US. What we have is a less weighing alternative that weighs even lesser than a credit card. Soldiers have already got wireless technology so that this equipment can be easily integrated with their uniform thus giving them extra protection, Swager added.
This sensor carries circuit loads containing carbon nanotubes that are conductive in nature, but they are present within an insulating material which maintains in a resistive state, according to researchers. When it gets subjected to toxic gas, the insulation breaks and nanotubes turn more conductive in nature. A signal is then sent which gets received by a smartphone at near field communication (NFC) technology that aids in sharing short distance data transmission. These sensors are so sensitive that even 10 parts per million of the toxic gas can be sensed in hardly five seconds.
Swager adds that they are trying to match the performance of equipment like gas chromatographs and spectrometer which are used as benchtop laboratory equipment that are priced high and needs skillful operators for handling it.
It is impossible to make something this cheaper. It is a very easily accessible sensor handy for the people.
