SBIR Phase I: Nanomaterial for Microchip Chemical Sensors

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This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a novel microchip chemical analyzer that incorporates a new nanomaterial that performs both separation and detection of small quantities of chemicals and biochemicals. This will be accomplished by developing the required chemistry and processing to coat microchannels (20 x 50 microns) with a proprietary material that contains silver nanoparticles capable of supporting plasmon surface modes and generating surface-enhanced Raman (SER) spectra. Preliminary studies suggest this new nanomaterial will provide continuous, reproducible, quantitative, reversible, and rapid chemical analysis to part per trillion concentrations in nanoliter sample volumes. Phase I will prove feasibility by preparing microchip chemical analyzers and testing their SER-activity. Testing will include several test chemicals (p-aminobenzoic acid, phenyl acetylene, etc.), pharmaceuticals (amobarbital, barbital, and phenylbarbital), and the four DNA bases (adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine). The commercial market applications for this technology include biotechnology (DNA sequencing, protein analysis), medicine (metabolite analysis), and pharmaceutical (high-throughput molecular structure identification).