Development partnership

, a York-based developer of detection and analysis technology, has entered into a partnership for the development of a new hydrogen sulphide (H2S) sensor for industrial safety applications.

Avacta said in a statement that its partner (the name of which cannot be given for reasons of commercial sensitivity) is an established manufacturer and distributor of inter alia, toxic gas detection equipment throughout the world.

Avacta’s trace gas detection exploits its cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (CEAS) technology and provides significant improvements over existing ‘industry standard’ detection technologies such as electrochemical sensors.

H2S is a colourless toxic gas and may be found wherever a mixture of hydrocarbons and sulphur occurs, which happens most commonly within petrochemical processing environments. Despite being associated with the odour of rotten eggs, H2S quickly deadens the sense of smell, so potential victims may not be aware of its presence until too late.

While electrochemical sensors can adequately detect H2S at the regulated exposure limit of 5ppm they have inherent limitations such as limited lifetimes, slow response and recovery times, plus the possibility for them to ‘sleep’ and also be poisoned by contaminating gases. Furthermore, electrochemical sensor failures are undetectable as they continue to give an ‘all OK’ reading when they cease to operate, even in the presence of the target gas.