Team:Rotterdam HR/Human Practices
Human Practices
Human Practices
Buveco
Gas detection company
March 14th 2018 and June 6th 2018
Before we chose our project we went to Buveco, a gas detection company, to discuss the inefficiencies with Carbon
Monoxide detectors in steel factories. The thing is, all Carbon Monoxide detectors have hydrogen interference. They
detect hydrogen and carbon monoxide as the same. If the carbon monoxide detector goes off, there is no telling if
the carbon monoxide levels are actually dangerous or that there is just a lot of hydrogen interference.
Buveco showed us their workplace and how their Carbon Monoxide detector works. With this information of
Buveco about hydrogen interference we started to think of a way to make the detector specific for only Carbon
Monoxide. We looked for a protein which only binds Carbon Monoxide and found CooA in combination with CooF and CooM
promotors.
They thought we had a very good idea and they did sponsor us with materials. We received the carbon monoxide
detector they sell to factories, CO and hydrogen tanks. This so we can test our own detector.
Since we’re working with the dangerous gas carbonmonoxide, we got a safety course from one of our main
sponsors, Buveco, on how to handle the gas and the tank. Also did we get a working sensor, which can alarm us in
case the gas leaks. Furthermore did we get a concentration of CO in the tank, which is not harmful when leaking for
8 hours. Buveco is our most important contact about CO detectors. We learnt a lot from them.
| Q: | Carbonmonoxide detectors without an interference with hydrogen don't exist yet, do you know why hydrogen interferes and why there is no solution yet? |
| A: | The interferention has to do with the electrochemical sensor on the detector. According to sensor manufacturers it is very difficult to develop a carbonmonoxide detector without the interference. There are detectors that are optimalised and suffer less from interference, but it is often at the expanse of the response time. |
| Q: | What do you think of our plan of developing a selective carbonmonoxide detector? And what is your opinion about introducing GMO's in the design? |
| A: | The idea of designing a selective carbon monoxide detector is great. However, we don't have enough knowledge to decide if the GMO's in the detector could work as an alternative. |
| Q: | Do you think the GMO's could be a reason for consumers to not buy the detector, even if it's declared safe? |
| A: | We don't dare to make a substantiated statement about this question. |
| Q: | Would you be interested in buying our gadget and/or optimalising it? |
| A: | On short term no, the main reason for this is the lack of resources. Besides that, we don't produce the sensors ourselves but produce the complete detector. The sensors are bought parts and produced by another company. |
| Q: | Do you have any tips for our team on optimalising and improving the selective carbon monoxide detector? |
| A: | Also test on other aspects, like overload, lifetime, reactiontime, temperature sensitivity, sensitivity to humidity, pressure differences, influences of other gasses and of course the cost price aspect. |
| Q: | Why did you decide to sponsor us? Do you see a future in the project, or do you like to help students who work on different issues like the carbon monoxide detector? |
| A: | Every now and then we serve a social purpose. This is not a core task, and we don't sponsor all the social purposes. This came on our path and appealed to us. |
| Q: | What do you think that our chances are at a successful project, with a potential market for our device? |
| A: | That depends on the specifications. For example, the selectivity of the sensor, the resistance of external influences, overload and of course the selectivity on other gasses. By which we mean are there any other standard gasses in such work environments that can adversely affect the sensor. |
Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu (RIVM)
May 14th 2018
Our team member Randall went to the dutch RIVM meeting on the 14th of May. He was a bit overeager (and early) since
he was the first student to arrive.
The RIVM meeting is an information day mostly about safety. It was an interesting meeting for the dutch iGEM
teams.
After this we had 2 skype calls with members of the RIVM (June 20th and August 17th). We discussed how we
were planning to make our product, and they gave us advice where to think of.
We first thought about making a kill switch in our bacteria. But the advice was: you can build a kill switch
(which is more difficult to make and you never really know if i works in every bacteria), but you can better build
your device so, it can never break. This we will take with us when we are going to build the device.
We know there are strict rules for bringing genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) outside the laboratory.
So they advised us to think of a way to replace the GMO’s in a later stadium of our product, which we maybe have to
do if the GMO rules stay the same.