GLASGOW-based M Squared Lasers has launched a research partnership with the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics at Strathclyde University, which the company says could improve the way environmental bodies and industry monitor waste gas emissions.

M Squared said the Synoposis project, co-funded by the Technology Strategy Board, would focus on how lasers could be used to more easily detect a broader range of potentially hazardous emissions from landfill sites, industrial plants, and chemical processes.

The Government-backed Technology Strategy Board said it was funding £180,978 of the £361,866 project cost.

M Squared, majority-owned by co-founders Graeme Malcolm and Gareth Maker, said infra-red light sources it develops would broaden the wavelengths that are able to identify contaminants, which absorb light at different wavelengths.

The firm said current technology had difficulty in accessing the full range of wavelengths in the infra-red known to be rich in so-called molecular "fingerprints" – tell-tale absorption features that can identify a variety of substances.

Mr Malcolm, chief executive of M Squared, said: "At the moment, scanning for these substances is a bit like having only one radio station tuned into your stereo – we need to find what else is out there, and that means increasing the range of frequencies we are able to scan."

M Squared said the Fraunhofer partnership provided it with access to additional resource and research capability, which would otherwise require significant financial investment.