Designed to provide a high level of plant and personnel protection, the Sentrum system has already been installed in many operations in the UK as well as China, Australia and South America.

“Sentrum is the first system of its type that is certified for use underground and the first to be able to differentiate between methane and other non-methane hydrocarbons so accurately,” the company said.

Differentiation is possible by continually sampling gas and using infra-red detection and other processes, and an initial gas analysis could “train” the system.

Subsequent analysis can be used for fine-tuning.

“Removing methane gas from underground coalmines is a very necessary safety measure yet a new awareness of the value of waste gases for power generation, or for direct sale to aggregators, has led to a demand for increased accuracy in monitoring the extraction processes for these gases,” officials said.

Trolex was a part of the European Union-funded methane extraction project based in China and India. A remote data monitoring system was employed there to provide real-time analysis information to the UK.

There are 30 Sentrum systems installed at 15 Alkane Energy sites across the UK.

The company also has launched a Sentrum microsite dedicated to methane recovery monitoring systems to highlight the necessity of using reliable gas sensing equipment in potentially dangerous environments; the site provides information on workwide projects using Sentrum.