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ThermoSI Newsletter

Thermometry with embedded SI traceability for industrial applications

Coverage: 31 October 2025 – 16 October 2026

Welcome to this round-up of the last year of ThermoSI. Since the end of October 2025, the consortium has presented at TEMPMEKO, recommissioned NPL's standard flame, run a joint workshop with FunSNM, hosted the international phosphor thermometry conference, demonstrated self-validating thermocouple software to industry, and met in Berlin for the M24 review.

Project meeting

M24 annual review · PTB, Berlin

7–8 October 2026

The consortium met at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) to review progress across all four work packages:

• WP1: Thermal imaging
• WP2: Johnson noise thermometry
• WP3: Phosphor thermometry to 1250 °C
• WP4: Artificial intelligence for thermometry

The ThermoSI consortium at PTB, Berlin. Photo: ThermoSI.

Partners toured laboratories for emissivity measurement, detector radiometry and radiation thermometry, electronic sensor circuits and detectors for Johnson noise thermometry, and noble-metal thermocouple fabrication and calibration. A wider site tour explored PTB's history and included BMSR-2, one of the world's most magnetically shielded rooms.

Thank you to Ingmar, Christian, Albert and the PTB team for hosting.

Read the update →

Technical progress

Emissivity of phosphor coatings at SMU

September 2026

SMU carried out preliminary emissivity measurements on three phosphor samples deposited on aluminium substrates, using the virtual source method. The samples were heated from behind with a resistance heater and first measured at a surface temperature of 200 °C. Further measurements at higher temperatures will help advance accurate, SI-traceable optical temperature measurement.

Read the update →

Self-validating thermocouples: INSEVA software

June 2026

NPL and CCPI Europe demonstrated software at CCPI's Sheffield facility that automates operation of their self-validating thermocouples. Each sensor contains a miniature fixed-point cell in its tip; the software identifies and characterises the melting plateau to provide an in-situ calibration and monitor sensor drift. The software is ready for stakeholder testing, with units already on trial at several organisations. The technology is relevant to high-temperature heat treatment and other metal-processing applications.

Read the update →

NPL standard flame recommissioned

November 2025

NPL's standard flame during laser Rayleigh-scattering calibration. Photo: NPL / ThermoSI.

Led by Gavin Sutton and Aldo Mendieta, the NPL team recommissioned and recalibrated the standard flame developed through the earlier EMPRESS projects. It provides a stable, reproducible region of gas temperature and composition for calibrating optical thermometers.

• Calibrated for propane/air flames across equivalence ratios from 0.8 (lean) to 1.4 (rich).
• The new results are approximately 10 ± 6 K above the original calibration from nine years earlier, within the combined uncertainty.
• A new propane cylinder was required; small differences in gas composition may explain the offset, and further analysis is planned.
• The flame is due to travel to DTU to support spectroscopic temperature measurements developed within ThermoSI.

Dedicated software and iterative corrections deliver a flame-temperature uncertainty below 0.5%, without disturbing the flame.

Read the update →

Events and outreach

TEMPMEKO 2025 · Reims

4 November 2025: ThermoSI contributed six oral presentations and three posters. Topics included high-temperature phosphors, luminescence-based traceable thermal imaging, emissivity measurements and practical Johnson noise thermometry. Jonathan Pearce (NPL) joined a round table on the future challenges of thermal metrology.

Read the update →

ThermoSI–FunSNM online workshop

6 May 2026: More than 70 attendees joined speakers from NPL, DTI, VTT, PTB, DTU, BEAMEX and industry to discuss traceable industrial temperature measurement, sensor-network metrology and measurement assurance, with applications ranging from heat treatment to district heating and air quality.

Read the update →

PHOSTECH and World Engineering Day

April 2026: An article marked World Engineering Day by highlighting PHOSTECH, a practical handheld phosphor thermometer conceived by Gavin Sutton at NPL and developed by NPL engineers through more than 11 years of R&D.

Read the article →

Summer school on primary thermometry · Santander

13–15 May 2026: ThermoSI contributed to the DireK-T summer school. Paul Bramley (Metrosol) presented practical Johnson noise thermometry, including a live prototype demonstration, alongside sessions on future thermodynamic temperature traceability and emerging techniques.

Read the update →

ICPT 2026 · NPL Teddington

24–26 June 2026

The 5th International Conference on Phosphor Thermometry welcomed nearly 60 delegates from Europe, North America and Asia, with seven invited talks, 36 contributed presentations, posters, round tables and laboratory tours.

ThermoSI contributions included Albert Adibekyan (PTB) on emissivity characterisation, Gavin Sutton (NPL) on PHOSTECH, and a poster by Henrik Kjeldsen (DTI) on a high-temperature phosphor thermometry and calibration facility.

Presenters were encouraged to submit work to the ICPT2026 special issue of Measurement Science and Technology.

Researchers and industry experts at a phosphor thermometry conference at NPL. Photo: ThermoSI.

Read the ICPT update →

ThermoSI in the measurement community

Precision magazine

September 2026

A ThermoSI-related article appeared on pages 10–12 of Issue 41 of Precision, the magazine of the Institute of Measurement and Control, sharing the project's work on reliable, traceable industrial temperature measurement.

Read the update →

Looking ahead

• June 2027: final project meeting and industrial workshop at AFRC in Glasgow, Scotland.
• Continue WP1 emissivity measurements at higher temperatures.
• Transfer of the NPL standard flame to DTU.
• Carry out INSEVA trials with industrial partners.
• Carry out JNT trials with industrial partners.

Posts covered in this newsletter

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Funding acknowledgement

The project 23IND11 ThermoSI has received funding from the European Partnership on Metrology, co-financed from the European Union's Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme and by the Participating States. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EURAMET. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.