PARTNERSHIPS
Commercial Partnerships
Building New Chemical Sensing Capabilities
Altered Carbon partners with ambitious organisations seeking to develop or integrate next-generation gas sensing, VOC detection, digital olfaction and chemical-perception capabilities into commercial products and industrial systems.
Our proprietary platform combines functionalised graphene chemical sensors, configurable sensor arrays, ultra-low-power electronics and AI-based pattern recognition to detect individual gases, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and more complex chemical signatures.
We work with organisations looking for a custom chemical sensor, bespoke gas-sensing capability, OEM sensing platform, embedded VOC sensor or electronic-nose technology where conventional off-the-shelf sensors cannot deliver the required performance, intelligence, power profile or form factor.
A project might begin with a single question - can we detect this gas or chemical change? - and develop into an integrated sensing capability within an existing product, machine or platform.
Our focus is on strategic collaborations where Altered Carbon’s technology can become part of a partner’s long-term roadmap, creating scalable application-specific solutions and access to chemical data that was previously difficult or impractical to capture.
WHAT WE OFFER
Develop & Deliver
01
Chemical Sensor Laboratory
Our chemical sensor laboratory supports the development, testing and optimisation of application-specific sensor arrays.
Working from the chemical problem itself, our team can evaluate target gases, VOCs or more complex chemical signatures, refine graphene functionalisation, optimise sensor-array responses and validate performance under relevant conditions.
Tailoring
Application-specific optimisation aligned with the target chemistry, environment and performance requirements.
Team
Materials scientists and engineers working directly with partner technical and R&D teams.
Rapid Testing
Structured evaluation against gases, VOCs, mixtures and other relevant chemical signatures to accelerate feasibility and development.
02
Advanced Sensor Hardware
Our compact sensing hardware provides a route from laboratory development into real-world environments, enabling field data collection, model development and integration with existing digital systems.
The underlying architecture has been designed to shorten the journey from sensing concept to deployable system.
Faster Time to Market
A developed hardware architecture reduces unnecessary redevelopment and enables earlier real-world validation.
Connection
Connected sensing enables secure data collection and analysis across distributed locations.
Real-World AI
Models can be developed using data from the environment in which the final sensing application is intended to operate.
03
Biomedical Laboratory
Our collaboration with the Centre for Biomedical Research at UWE Bristol supports research into clinically relevant sensing applications and emerging diagnostic pathways.
Access
Research infrastructure supporting human-health and translational sensing programmes.
Resources
Multidisciplinary expertise spanning biosensing, molecular science and diagnostics.
Expertise
Collaboration with researchers to support rigorous investigation and validation of new healthcare applications.
04
AI Development Platform
Our AI development environment is designed specifically around multidimensional chemical sensor data.
Rather than treating each sensing element in isolation, machine-learning models analyse patterns across the array and over time, converting complex sensor responses into application-specific intelligence.
Purpose-Built
Designed around multi-element graphene chemical sensing and real-world time-series data.
AI Models
Transforms sensor-array responses into trained models for specific gases, VOCs or chemical signatures.
Deployment
Models and outputs can integrate with partner software, dashboards, cloud services and connected systems.
05
Commercialisation Support
Our scientific, technical and commercial teams can work with partners from early feasibility through validation, integration and scaled deployment.
The objective is not merely to demonstrate that something can be detected. It is to determine whether that capability can become a defensible and commercially valuable product, service or intelligence layer.
Dedication
Cross-functional collaboration aligning technical development with commercial objectives.
Agreement
Commercial structures designed around the application, scale, route to market, intellectual property and long-term value creation.
Start Now
Bring us the sensing problem. We can explore whether chemical perception offers a new way to solve it.
WHERE CHEMICAL PERCEPTION CAN CREATE VALUE
You Don’t Need to Be Looking for a “Digital Nose”
Some of the most valuable sensing opportunities begin with a problem rather than a technology.
A gas that is difficult to monitor continuously. A chemical change that occurs before a failure. A product whose quality can currently only be assessed too late. An industrial process where a subtle change in air chemistry could provide an earlier warning.
If an event produces a repeatable airborne chemical signal, there may be an opportunity to detect, classify or monitor it.
These are examples of the kinds of challenges we are interested in exploring with commercial and technical partners.
Battery & Energy Safety
Lithium-ion battery off-gas and thermal-runaway early warning is an active area of sensing research, using gases and electrolyte vapours produced during battery degradation as potential indicators before or during failure.
We are interested in partnerships exploring battery off-gas detection, electrolyte-vapour and VOC sensing, hydrogen and other characteristic gases, and chemical intelligence for battery energy storage systems (BESS), electric vehicles, battery packs and energy infrastructure.
Industrial Gas & Process Monitoring
Industrial environments contain numerous chemical signals that may indicate leakage, process change, equipment deterioration or loss of containment.
Potential challenges include hydrogen leak detection, industrial gas monitoring, VOC and solvent emissions, chemical leakage, refrigerant or ammonia detection, filtration breakthrough, process-gas changes and distributed environmental monitoring.
For industrial technology companies, equipment manufacturers and process operators, these signals may create opportunities for earlier intervention and new predictive-maintenance data.
Buildings, Facilities & Critical Environments
Commercial buildings, hotels, warehouses, data centres and plant rooms contain environmental risks that often become obvious only after damage, disruption or deterioration has begun.
Chemical sensing opportunities can include indoor VOCs and material off-gassing, microbial and mould-associated VOC signatures, refrigerant leakage, smoke or vaping signatures, plant-room gases and changing air chemistry associated with abnormal building conditions.
Alongside Altered Carbon’s dedicated Building Intelligence products, we are interested in working with building-technology, HVAC, facilities-management and equipment partners that want to integrate new chemical-sensing capabilities into their own systems.
Food, Agriculture & Cold Chain
Food and biological materials change their chemical emissions as they ripen, deteriorate, become contaminated or respond to stress.
Potential applications include food spoilage detection, freshness monitoring, microbial VOCs (MVOCs), ethylene and fruit ripening, shelf-life prediction, fungal contamination, crop disease and stress, controlled-atmosphere storage, cold-chain monitoring and post-harvest quality.
We are interested in partnerships across food production, storage, logistics, retail, agricultural technology and intelligent packaging where continuous chemical information could reduce waste or improve quality control.
Healthcare & Life Sciences
Human biology also produces complex chemical information.
Research opportunities include breath VOC analysis, biological and metabolic volatile signatures, environmental markers in clinical settings and other chemical patterns associated with health or disease.
We are interested in collaborations with healthcare, diagnostics, life-science and academic partners where graphene sensing and machine learning can support rigorous development and validation of new sensing approaches.
Robotics, Autonomous Systems & Physical AI
Robots and autonomous machines increasingly understand the physical world through cameras, microphones, radar, lidar and other sensors - but chemistry remains largely invisible to them.
Potential applications include gas-source and chemical-source detection, hazardous-environment inspection, leak localisation, air and process monitoring by autonomous systems, robotic sensing and chemical perception for Physical AI.
Our platform provides a route for companies developing robots, drones, autonomous systems and intelligent machines to explore a new sensory modality beyond sight and sound.
WHO WE WORK WITH
Partners Building What’s Next
We work with sensor and semiconductor manufacturers, industrial technology companies, energy and battery businesses, automotive manufacturers and suppliers, building and environmental technology providers, robotics and autonomous-systems developers, healthcare and diagnostics companies, food and agricultural technology businesses, OEMs and connected-device manufacturers seeking new chemical sensing capabilities.
We also partner with corporate innovation teams, R&D groups and strategic technology organisations exploring advanced gas sensing, graphene sensors, VOC detection, digital olfaction or machine chemical perception as part of future product roadmaps.
Whether the challenge involves a known gas, a VOC, a combination of compounds or a complex changing chemical signature, Altered Carbon can help assess the route from initial feasibility through sensing development, AI, integration, validation and commercial deployment.