FOCUS ON HEALTH MATTERS

A device to quickly analyze gas

Yuze “Alice” Sun is building a wearable device that could rapidly analyze gases and provide potentially life-saving information for wearers.

The electrical engineering associate professor received a $550,000 National Science Foundation grant to transform a powerful gas analysis instrument traditionally used in research labs into a portable and wearable device easily accessible by the public. While advancements in micro-gas chromatography over the past 20 years have shown great potential for the development of such devices, it remains a challenge to achieve efficient separation and rapid detection in a highly integrated, cost-effective, and mobile platform.

“The key to the project is system-level integration, including creating new micro-gas chromatography architecture and using photonic integrated circuits to achieve rapid and comprehensive volatile organic compounds gas analysis,” Dr. Sun explains. She is collaborating with Professor Weidong Zhou and industrial partner ams Sensors USA Inc. on the project.

The device’s potential applications are vast, which ultimately could help propel it to the marketplace more quickly. For example, homeowners could monitor their air quality to determine if certain allergens are present, or firefighters could determine whether accelerants are present at a fire.