SBIR Phase I: Hand-held Reagentless Trace Chemical (TraC) Water Quality Sensor

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Proposal Number IIP-1315831This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop and demonstrate a low cost, hand-held, reagentless instrument to provide real-time, in-situ, detection of trace chemical contaminants in water for environmental, municipal waste treatment, industrial waste, and other fixed and mobile water measurement settings. A specific example of the Trace Chemical (TraC) sensor is aimed at an on-line or off-line monitoring system that will improve the reliability and performance of wastewater treatment systems that are designed to remove nitrogen through Simultaneous Nitrification and DeNitrification (SNdN). This is an example of a major source of potential environmental contamination. The technology of the proposed innovative sensor is deep ultraviolet excited resonance Raman (DUV-RR) and native fluorescence spectroscopy which will enable real time, in situ, measurement of nitrate and nitrite in Biological Nutrient Removal (BNR) system reactors without the need for reagents, sample handling, or complex calibration procedures. The TraC sensor integrates two new technologies to provide dramatic reductions in size, weight, power consumption, and cost: a new technology narrow and stable linewidth deep UV laser and a new technology high data rate linear resistive gate CCD array detector. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to replace many analytical instruments that are currently employed to measure bulk or trace contaminants in water, air, soils, or surfaces. Most existing instruments require a significant amount of sample preparation and handling as well as the use of reagents and other consumables. Optical methods of analyzing contaminants continue to gain importance because of the basic non-contact, non-invasive nature, and speed of the measurement. Raman and native fluorescence spectroscopy has been increasingly employed to provide high levels of specificity in chemical identification without the need for dye tags or labels. This has been done to date in instruments mostly operating in the visible and infrared. Operating at these wavelengths has provided significant limitations in the types and concentrations of chemicals that can be detected because of low cross-sections and/or fluorescence obscuration of weak Raman emissions at these wavelengths. Moving to the deep UV below 250 nm offers a solution which has been demonstrated in large laboratory instruments but not yet possible in hand-held instruments. This will open up many markets for trace contaminant detection in a broad range of water, and soil environmental, force protection, and municipal, industrial, agricultural, and medical applications.