ROMA (ITALPRESS) – ENEA has developed an innovative electronic device that measures gaseous atmospheric pollutants in real time. In addition to measuring gas concentrations dispersed in the atmosphere, it allows constant observation of air quality and calibration or recalibration of electrochemical sensors for gas. Characterized by the highest technological maturity rate (TRL 9), it is composed of an electronic card and at least an electrochemical sensor that generates a signal in the presence of gas.
“Unlike common-use devices, what we have achieved allows us to use up to 4 sensors at the same time and calibrate them without resorting to the recalibration services offered by sensor manufacturers,” explains the inventor of the patent Domenico Suriano, ENEA researcher of the Modeller Laboratory and measures for the air quality of the Sustainability Department at the Research Centre in Brindisi.
The contemporary use of the sensors and the possibility of their recalibration without modification of the electronic components of the circuit, characteristic of the new device, allows a saving both time and economic. “The originality of the invention lies in the structure and configuration of the analog block of electronics combined with the digital block on the same substrate of the card,” says Suriano. “It allows you to recalibrate the sensor without altering the type of the circuit or replace the electronic components that characterize the two essential parameters, i.e., the setting of the amplification level of the electrical output currents of the sensor and the setting of the electronic zero level of the sensor,” concludes Suriano.
The potential of the device was tested in collaboration with Arpa Puglia and the Joint Research Center of the European Commission (JRC) in Ispra (Varese).
– Press Office photos ENEA –
(ITALPRESS).
