Prof. Justin Holmes: Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme

RADICAL, Fundamental Breakthrough in Detection of Atmospheric Free Radicals, FET Open project aims to develop devices which will lead to improved monitoring and control of air quality and better predictions of climate change.

The project aims to develop a brand-new way of detecting atmospheric radicals in real-time. This will be a small, low-cost electronic sensor that will ‘sniff’ out short-lived radicals such as hydroxyl and nitrate, which play a key intermediary role in day- and night-time air quality. This has never been done before, but if it works, our new RADICAL sensors will be cheap, small, and able to be deployed on a global scale. This will help scientists better monitor and model the role of radicals in air quality and climate change.

These sensors could also be adapted to detect other types of gases with a wide range of potential applications across manufacturing, health, and chemical industries. The project is a collaboration between  multidisciplinary partners across Europe including University College of Cork (Ireland), HZDR (Germany), University of York (United Kingdom), National  Technical University of Athens (Greece), Smartcom (Bulgaria) and UCC Academy (Ireland).

We have extensive expertise across the fields of material science, computer modelling, nanofabrication and nanoelectronics, as well as organic, radical and atmospheric chemistry.