SGER: The Initial Phase of Development of Digital Microfluidic Impactor

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This research will focus on the development of an ambient aerosol sampling system based on Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) technology. The advantage of this new technology is the size of the sampling system, low cost, and the ability to provide in situ analysis of certain chemical characteristics using a colorimetric detector. The analytical detector will be housed in a single microchip, along with the microfluid component that actually captures and transports the aerosol particles to the detector. The entire chip unit is placed in an aerosol collection system (impactor).The goal of this research is to produce an integrated unit that can be used for in situ analysis of ambient aerosol samples. While the technology of microfluidics has been demonstrated over the past several years, as well as that for the detector, an integrated system has not been attempted yet. This high risk research project is potentially transformative to the atmospheric sciences community in that its success may ultimately lead to the development of a new generation of lab-on-a-chip systems that will be extremely small, lightweight, portable, inexpensive, and have fast, in situ analysis response times.