GSS Unveils Battery-Powered Ultra-Fast Sensor for CO2 Monitoring

GSS Ltd, the LED-based NDIR detector specialists, continues to push the boundaries for CO₂ detectors with the launch of its new SprintIR^6S.  

GSS’ unique SmartIR™ technology has enabled it to create a sensor that can take up to 20 readings per second, which is a world record for NDIR CO₂ detectors, and has a six times faster response rate than the current SprintIR*.

Ralph Weir, GSS’ CEO, explained, “We are the only company producing CO₂ sensors using LEDs and photodiodes and, as we make the LEDs and photodiodes ourselves, we have been able to develop ultra-fast response times that no other NDIR sensor can match.  Typical NDIR CO₂ detectors take several seconds or even minutes to take a reading – because they use slow-reacting IR sources, which need time and energy to warm up, like MEMS hotplates, micro-bulbs or filament-based micro-lamp technologies. Our LEDs, by contrast, are Solid State emitters, and illuminate almost instantly.  With the new SprintIR^6S, we’ve also minimised the sample volume down to only 2ml, which enables us to achieve our fastest ever response rates*.  This puts us in a unique position to open whole new application areas for CO₂ monitors that could never be addressed by slow responding sensors based on traditional IR sources.”

Applications for this new class of ultra fast CO₂ sensors include health where they can capture rapidly changing CO₂ concentrations in the breathing cycle to provide diagnostic information, which can be used in fitness testing, breath analysis/measurement, capnography, sports science and veterinary to name a few.  In Industrial Health and Safety applications, such as factories where CO₂ is used for modified atmospheres to delay packaged food from spoiling, they can provide ultra fast detection of rising CO₂ levels.  Even a doubling or tripling of normal CO₂ levels can affect concentration and productivity with higher levels having increasingly deleterious effects on health right up to unconsciousness and death.  

“A leak from a CO₂ canister or similar can push CO₂ levels up from the normal 400ppm to several thousand ppm in seconds,” added Ralph Weir.  “You cannot smell CO₂ and it is colourless.  Yet it can present serious health problems at raised concentrations so, the sooner an alarm is raised, the sooner people can take remedial action.  For example, restaurants and pubs usually have CO₂ cylinders in the basement for the drinks but basements typically have poor ventilation so an undetected CO₂ leak could suddenly raise the CO₂ level when someone was in the basement and render them unconscious – or dead.  Our new sensors can give the earliest possible warning.”  

GSS’ multi-patented SmartIR™ technology detects the presence of CO₂ by detecting how much light is absorbed by CO₂ molecules as light passes through the sample gases – called Non-Dispersive InfraRed (NDIR) absorption.  CO₂ absorbs between 4.2 and 4.4 microns so that its presence is easily detected, and the amount of light absorbed indicates how much CO₂ is present.

Typically, CO₂ detectors use a miniature heater (such as MEMS devices like micro hotplates, microlamp/microbulb or filament heater) to generate a range of wavelengths that have to be filtered down to the wavelengths needed, which is wasteful and energy inefficient, especially as a lot of heat is produced.  By contrast, GSS developed the world’s first commercial, mid-range IR LEDs that are specifically tuned to emit just at 4.2 to 4.4 microns, making them highly energy efficient.  As a result, GSS CO₂ sensors are the only NDIR CO₂ sensors that can be powered by batteries – a single lithium cell can power a SmartIR sensor for up to ten years.

At less than a cubic inch (23.8mm in diameter and 24mm tall), the SprintIR^6S operates at between 3.25 and 5.5V, with a power consumption of only 35mW.  The SprintIR^6S is available in measurement ranges from 0%to 100%.

GSS will be revealing the new SprintIR^6S detectors on Stand 1-634 at the Sensor + Test show in Nuremberg, Germany from 30 May to 1 June 2017. If you would like to arrange a time to see the new SprintIR^6S at the show, please get in touch. You can register online for the Sensor + Test show here. SprintIR^6S evaluation kits and products can be ordered from June 2017.