Savings in the air

In a bid to help the car industry keep production costs down scientists at

are developing nano-structured micro-power gas sensors.

These are often used in 'car air cabin quality' tests to detect pollutant gases, such as carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides.

While conventional sensors are handmade and can cost up to £20 each, the researchers hope to produce one that would use very low power and be electronically mass-produced to ultimately bring down car manufacturing costs.

'Typically, you are paying £17 to £20 a sensor, but we would get way below £6 and our target is around 70p each,' said Prof Julian Gardner of Warwick's electronic engineering department. 'By using microelectronic technology, similar to the production of silicon wafers, you can mass produce them at a low cost.'

Furthermore, Gardner said the sensors will be fully compatible with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology.

'CMOS allows you to integrate all the electronics on to the chip, so it is much cheaper,' he said.