Elektra Awards 2017 winners | Excellence in Product Design – Medical

Winners of this year’s Elektra Awards were announced at a glamorous ceremony last night in London. Here we reveal the winner of the Excellence in Product Design – Medical category.

Recognising outstanding medical design among component suppliers and product OEMs developed at least partly in Europe.

Winner

Winner Gas Sensing Solutions – N-Tidal, a portable CO2 breath analyser

Congratulations go to Gas Sensing Solutions for its N‑Tidal system, a portable CO2 breath analyser, which judges described as a “fascinating application of LED technology and, potentially, a game‑changing solution to a real-world problem”.

Its SprintIR technology replaces the traditional infrared (IR) source of a filament or microheater with a proprietary, LED IR source. This reduces the power requirement by up to 30 times, enabling hand-held devices to be created.

The LED source is tuned to produce the wavelengths of 4.2μm to 4.4μm which are absorbed by CO2 molecules. The greater the absorption of IR light as it passes through the gas sample, the more CO2 is present.

The system is being commercialised by GSS’ sister company, Cambridge Respiratory Innovations (CRiL), which will seek to explore new fields of application solutions that were not possible before.

Potentially, millions of people around the world could benefit from low-cost personal respiratory monitors, tackling asthma and congestive heart failure.

Shortlist