Air Quality and HVAC

The latest GSS sensors are designed to operate in battery powered units for easy installation and deployment.

Building management systems (BMS), Demand-Controlled Ventilation (DCV) systems and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) equipment require accurate CO₂ monitoring to control air changes. 

The requirement to measure air quality is being driven by several factors, including health and wellbeing, legislation, and economics. Many countries have set maximum allowable levels of CO₂ in public buildings and workplaces to improve the wellbeing of workers. Changing the air in a building to regulate CO₂ levels has an energy cost – especially if the incoming air also has to be heated or cooled. CO₂ levels are a good proxy for fresh air and can be used to check if there is enough ventilation in the building to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

CO₂ monitoring systems often need to be installed in locations where access to mains power is limited, or its provision is costly. The ability to be able to power the CO₂ sensor for long periods of time from a battery or from energy generated using harvesting techniques is highly desirable. To reduce maintenance costs, users want the ability for the CO₂ sensor to operate autonomously for many years without user intervention.

Conventional CO₂ sensors use an incandescent light source. However, these mid-IR light sources consume lots of power during a lengthy warm-up phase and during operation, making them unattractive especially for retrospective installations, where there is often a lack of an easily accessible power source. All GSS sensors use an in-house designed ultra-efficient LED light source. LEDs are much more efficient in converting electrical power into light than conventional light sources and they do not need the long warm up times suffered by incandescent light sources. The length of time the light source is active is a major contributor to how much power is consumed by the sensor. In a power sensitive application, a GSS CO₂ sensor is typically pulsed on and off to minimise overall power consumption. GSS’s new CozIR® range of sensors have been designed specifically to address applications for measurement of ambient CO₂ levels. These ultra-low power CO₂ sensors are optimised for accuracy in the 0-1% concentration range. They are ideal for battery powered wireless equipment to address the emerging requirements for low cost distributed building management systems (BMS), Demand-Controlled Ventilation (DCV) and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) systems.

HVAC Controller

Suggested Products

Our most flexible ultra-low-power CO₂ sensor with a choice of UART or I²C control interfaces, digital and analogue CO₂ measurement outputs and a fail-safe digital alarm level monitor.

Downloads

Ultra-Low-Power CO₂ Sensors Enable Wireless Remote Monitoring for Building Management Solutions and IoT Connectivity White Paper, Revision 3.0

White Paper

PDF - 492 KB

What is fresh Air White Paper, Revision 2.0

White Paper

PDF - 290 KB