Lead Performer: Dioxide Materials™ – Boca Raton, FL
Partner: I-SENSE at Florida Atlantic University – Boca Raton, FL
DOE Total Funding: $150,000
Project Term: June 13, 2016 – March 12, 2017
Funding Type: STTR Phase I

Project Objective

The objective of the proposed work is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate new technologies for low-cost, high-accuracy, whole-building CO2 monitoring for demand control ventilation. The work builds on a private/public partnership formed between Dioxide Materials™ and the Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering (I-SENSE) at Florida Atlantic University. In previous, NSF-supported work, Dioxide Materials has developed low-cost, low-power CO2 sensors for building HVAC applications. The sensors show better signal-to-noise than commercially available sensors and cost an order of magnitude less to manufacture. I-SENSE is a leader in the design and application of low-cost, low-power telemetry platforms and sensor network systems.

Together, the team will develop the electronics and software necessary to interface Dioxide Materials™’s sensors to a building DDC system. In particular, the project will concentrate on developing a wireless networking platform and associated firmware to provide signal conditioning and conversion, fault- and disruption-tolerant networking, and multi-hop routing at building scales to avoid rewiring costs.

Project Impact

If successful, the public benefits could be profound: The devices and resulting system will lower the amount of energy homes and businesses use for heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC), resulting in significant savings for everyone in America. This will be accomplished by changing the controls in the HVAC system to use less energy by using CO2 sensors to measure air quality and occupancy of each room, and adjusting the HVAC systems accordingly. The U.S. DOE website for information on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) claims that demand control ventilation using CO2 sensors could reduce the energy costs of heating and cooling of a building by 10-30%.

Contacts

DOE Technology Manager: Marina Sofos
Principal Investigator: Jason O. Hallstrom, I-SENSE at Florida Atlantic University