Three KNUST students develop gas leakage detector gadget
– The technology also operates via SMS alert
A level 100 Chemical Engineering student, Comfort Benewaa Osei Owusu and her two friends from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have developed a gas leakage detector that operates via SMS alert.
The technology seeks to detect any gas leakage and avert the possible destruction that comes with it.
Comfort is ably supported by Safianu Inunnarm and Barikisu Nasiru, both Geological Engineering students.
She said the innovation and idea came about after losing a friend in a gas explosion.
“There are a lot of fire outbreaks in Ghana resulting from a gas explosion. Recently one of our friends died as a result of that and we thought there should be a formidable solution,” Comfort Benewaa Osei Owusu opined.
They girls narrated that their technology or gadget is equipped with a sensor which detects gas concentration and triggers a buzzer to alert neighbours.
They also noted that it has a GPS and GSM with the capacity to contain, at least, three phone numbers.
These automatically send messages whenever there is gas leakage.
“The GPS and GSM model will send a message that there’s gas leakage. And you can add fire service numbers to it which is important,” Comfort explained.
Ghana has, since 2014, recorded, at least, nine major incidents of gas explosion nationwide.
Six of them occurred in the Greater Accra Region and one each in Takoradi in Western, Kasoa in Central and Kumasi Ashanti Regions.
Meanwhile, it is also reported that 35% of the over 300 burns cases reported at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in 2017 were from gas explosions.