Yole Reports on Gas Sensors, Air Quality Monitoring

The Yole Group of Companies, including System Plus Consulting and Yole Développement (Yole), is covering the gas and particle sensor industry with two dedicated analysis: Gas and Particle Sensors technology & market analysis and Miniaturized Gas Sensor Comparison. System Plus Consulting, a reverse engineering and costing company, proposes a detailed structural, process and costing report focused on four gas sensors for consumer applications made by leading device manufacturers: Robert Bosch, ams and Sensirion.
 
To complete this technology approach, the market research and strategy consulting company Yole reveals its vision of the gas and particle sensor markets, with detailed market segmentation, competitive landscape, market forecasts, technology roadmap.
 
Outdoor air pollution is one of the major challenges of the 21st century,  Yole analysts reported. Approximately 4 million deaths globally were attributed to it in 2014. Later, another estimate in 2016, is that more than 90% of the world’s population lives in regions where air pollutant levels are higher than the WHO-specified limits.
 
Thus, there is a global drive to tackle this problem, specifically by developing and installing gas and particle sensors. For a long time, gas and particle sensor market has been restricted to industrial applications to ensure air quality control and workers’ safety. Then, gas sensing has been steadily adopted for HVAC. Here the main driver was the energy consumption saving enabled by better control of the air conditioning. Nowadays, the degradation of global air quality is impacting many different places, homes, offices, hotels, cars and urban areas.
 
The market has therefore evolved and the primary market driver is ensuring inhabitant and user safety. This trend also extends to other environments, such as personal vehicles, public transportation and homes.
 
The gas sensor market is expected to reach more than US$ 1 billion in 2022, according to Yole. As an example, the market for air purifier systems, which often embed gas and particle sensors, is expected to expand from US$16 billion in 2017 to US$33 billion in 2023 with a 12.5% CAGR.
 
Commercial vehicles have increasingly adopted gas and particle sensors onboard to ensure the high quality of air for their customers. Previously sensors were embedded in-cabin to activate the air conditioning system when CO2 and VOC concentrations become critical. Today, additional sensors can be found out of the cabin to sense the outside environment and close the ventilation system if pollution is detected.
 
MOS is the preferred technology because of its low cost, small size and improved sensitivity compared to the previous generation. To support this increasing market demand, historical players involved in gas sensors, such as Paragon, and Amphenol, which has acquired SGX, are now developing particle sensors. The big sensor leaders like Robert Bosch and Sensirion have identified the air quality market as a very promising one. They are therefore using their know-how to develop new technical solutions for both gas and particle sensing.
 
Although it had big promise, the consumer segment is taking more time than expected to be a real significant share of the gas sensors market. Nevertheless, consumer depollution systems, for example, are growing fast, especially in Asia. Those systems often include both gas and particles sensors.
 
“Gas sensors miniaturization has allowed their introduction to consumer applications and their manufacture in large volumes,” explained Audrey Lahrach, cost analyst from System Plus Consulting.
 
Under its miniaturized gas sensor report, System Plus Consulting has reviewed four different gas sensors from three manufacturers. The analysts propose a relevant comparison of the following components: the AS-MLV-P2 and the CCS801 from ams, the BME680 from Robert Bosch and the SGP30 from Sensirion. This report includes a relevant description of each structure and design, the related technical choices, process flows and costs.