THEME ALIGNMENT

INDUSTRY PROBLEM

Mining safety such as the build-up of toxic or explosive gases is of particular interest to the mining industry. The current gas sensors are difficult to deploy and cover limited spatial areas in practice, and thus do not provide a complete picture of the entire mine. Nanosensors have the potential to address these limitations due to their small size, ultrahigh surface-to-volume ratio, sensitivity, selectivity, fast response, and low power consumption. The major obstacle to nanosensor commercialization is a lack of reliable and scalable manufacturing techniques, and transitioning nanowire sensors from the laboratory into economical devices has proven problematic.