Dart Sensors LTD.  

Exeter,  Devon 
United Kingdom
  • Booth: 240

Walter King welcomes you to the Dart Sensors booth 240.

Dart Sensors was established in 1994 and draws on over 40 years experience with electrochemical sensors. We are the world leading manufacturer in terms of volume of fuel cell sensors for breathalysers for all applications, with over 40 customers and over 1 million sold last year. Our latest alcohol detection development is the transdermal (skin contact) sensor giving a reading from the blood, which we will demonstrate and discuss at the show.

We also have a substantial share of the world market for formaldehyde sensors. We offer a precalibrated sensor module for formaldehyde and carbon monoxide which outputs a digital ppm value, no need for the customer to calibrate.

A variation on the alcohol sensor is the Food Freshness sensor which is sensitive to spoilage in a wide variety of foodstuffs including meat, fish, fruit and some vegetables.

Dart Sensors Ltd is based in England and operates a sales and technical support office in Shenzhen, China.

Brands: Dart Sensors Ltd. Dart Sensors Shenzhen Ltd

 Press Releases

  • You may have seen a news story about a pilot who was breathalysed on turning up for work, failed the test and was sent home. You may have thought “Quite right, the public must be protected”. But did you go on to think “So what, suppose he turned up sober and picked up a bottle of wine off the drinks trolley during the flight.” Or there again, a train driver with a hip flask, a taxi driver having a few Scotches with lunch? Checking when they start work is all very well. How can they be checked across a working day? Why doesn’t somebody come up with a cheap compact device that can monitor their blood while at work?

    Somebody just did.

    The principle of reading blood alcohol from the sweat has been around for some time, but the devices are expensive and bulky—think breathalyser strapped to the leg. Dart Sensors, the world’s biggest supplier of breath alcohol sensors, has developed a low cost device that can be strapped to the arm, no bigger than a wristwatch, that can continuously monitor blood alcohol for 10 hours or so and communicate the data to a mobile phone, to be transmitted for later review or immediate action.

    Pre-production prototypes will shortly be available for evaluation. Subject to acceptance we can build in anti-tamper technology to ensure that the device can not be cheated. If all goes well and the technology gets accepted and mandated, the world will be a little bit safer for us all.

    And now you are thinking, “Hey, when can I get one of these toys?”. Sorry, you can’t. The reason is not any failing with the technology, it works very well. It’s simply that the simple consumer breathalyser, with which it will inevitably be compared, is a very poor estimator of actual blood alcohol, but is now the standard against which other technologies will be compared.

  • So you are a young, budding entrepreneur—well, maybe not so young—with some ideals on public protection and some bright ideas on manufacturing some cheap, accurate devices to measure and warn of the poisonous gases that lurk in the home and in the street. You have researched the market, you have the investment, but you don’t have much technical knowledge. You hire the boys and girls who know about such things and they say sure, the electronics is simple, the software is simple, the device can be built cheaply with a healthy profit margin, but…. you’ll have to calibrate them. You ask, what does that entail? Then they tell you: you need expensive gas mixing devices, gas cylinders, employee protection, air monitoring routines, as these chemicals can give you cancer or kill you. That, after all, is why you were interested in them in the first place. Why, you exclaim, don’t the sensor manufacturers sell the sensors already calibrated so we just plug them into the product?

    You didn’t know? At Dart Sensors we already do.

    Our sensors for formaldehyde and carbon monoxide carry a chip which holds the individual information to take the sensor output and convert it to a digital, ppm reading which is all the information your device needs to do its job. The sensors are miniature fuel cells: sensitive, accurate, cheap to produce, stable, with long service lives. The formaldehyde sensor module can read way down to 30 ppb, and is available specific to formaldehyde or non-specific (VOC). The carbon monoxide product meets the UL 2034 standard for domestic alarm.

    So no problem then. Why not talk to us?

  • One third of the world’s food is wasted. Food valued at billions of dollars, every year. Some, because it goes bad before being consumed. Some, perfectly wholesome, is thrown away simply because it has passed its predicted shelf life. Isn’t it time that we had some reliable system for monitoring the state of foodstuffs?

    The Dart Sensors FoodFresh sensor is highly sensitive to gases emitted during the decay processes of meat, fish, milk, fruit and some vegetables. It can be used as a general health indicator for a cross-section of foods or else tailored to meet the requirements of a particular industry, for example, dairy. By sampling the ambient vapour at fixed intervals the initial purity of the product can be tested, the onset of spoilage indicated, and the ongoing degree of decay determined.


  • Sensor for continuous blood alcohol monitoring
    Skin contact sensor provides continuous employee blood alcohol monitoring during shift.

    Ideal for monitoring bus, train, company car, truck drivers and airline pilots etc.


  • Novel transdermal alcohol sensor provides continuous employee blood alcohol monitoring up to ten hours through a shift, not just intermittently by breathalyser.

    Particularly relevant for protection of users of public transport. Ideal for employer monitoring of bus, train, company car, truck drivers and airline pilots.

    Data transmits via mobile phone for review. Compact device, easily attached, easily removed, recharges overnight.

    Tamper-proof features to be installed.

  • Digital precalibrated gas sensor modules
    Digital precalibrated gas sensor modules for formaldehyde and carbon monoxide.
    Outputting ppm value directly, no need to calibrate.

  • Most gas sensor products place the onus of calibration on the customer. Some gases (such as formaldehyde) are difficult to handle and some, such as carbon monoxide are highly poisonous. By placing the calibration on an on board chip the sensor module can be installed directly ready to use, outputting a ppm value directly. Our modules contain fuel cell sensors with high sensitivity, low power requirement and long life expectancy (7+ years).

    The formaldehyde module reads to 30 ppb and is suitable for industrial and domestic uses.

    The carbon monoxide module is aimed at the domestic market and meets UL 2034.

  • Food freshness sensor
    The food freshness sensor is a chemical sensor sensitive to gases released during spoilage in meat, milk, fish, fruit and vegetables.

  • The food freshness sensor is highly sensitive and can give an early warning of decay in many types of food. Foods such as fruit contain sugars and release ethanol on fermentation; meat and fish, various amines; milk souring is complex and the sensor can detect its characteristic vapours. The sensor is suitable for domestic and industrial applications, it has a long life, and low power requirement. It can be operated in continuous or intermittent modes according to the requirement. Analysis of the sensor response parameters can predict imminent spoilage.

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