SBIR Phase I: A Smartphone-Based Handheld Sensor for Accurate and Quantitative Detection of Toxic Ion Contaminants in Environmental Water

该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是一种便携式，低成本的即插即用移动互联网集成传感器产品，满足水质监测市场的需求，这是一个复合年增长率为4-6%的全球市场。水检测设备市场分为提供分析物定性信息的低端、低成本现场检测设备（如硝酸盐试纸）和提供准确定量信息的实验室高端检测设备（如质谱仪）。如果成功，这种传感器技术将为有毒离子等分析物的定量测量提供低成本、灵敏、准确的工具，从而弥补这一差距。因此，所提议的传感器技术的成功演示将促进个性化移动水质监测设备的更广泛的市场接受和渗透。项目的另一个方面是启用？公民科学家?参与环境资料收集及推广可持续发展教育。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目提议开发一种基于智能手机的电子传感器技术，用于实时水质监测。目前，光谱法、毛细管电泳法、化学还原法、气相色谱耦合质谱法是水质分析中应用最广泛的技术；然而，这些仪器体积庞大，价格昂贵；这些方法耗时，并且涉及费力的样品处理步骤，需要在实验室环境中训练有素的人员；为了满足市场对便携式、低成本和易于使用的水分析技术的需求，该项目将研究一种智能手机集成电子读出传感器平台，该平台将能够通过以下方式解决上述所有问题：1)开发一种低成本、便携式传感器包，该传感器包由电化学传感器芯片、驱动电路和独立操作的可充电电池电源组成；2)应用聚合物固定化离子传感涂层，提高非实验室环境下离子检测的选择性；3)利用针对校准曲线的算法自动检测和量化有毒离子；4)利用智能手机内置GPS和移动宽带功能，将传感结果与地理空间信息结合，上传到云端进行进一步分析。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is a portable, low-cost plug and play mobile internet integrated sensor product catering to the needs of water quality monitoring market, a global market with a compounded annual growth rate of 4-6%. The water testing equipment market is divided into low-end, low-cost on-field test equipment (such as nitrate strip) that gives qualitative information about the analytes, and high-end testing devices used in labs (such as mass spectrometer) providing accurate quantitative information. If successful, this sensor technology will bridge the gap by providing low-cost, sensitive, accurate tools for quantitative measurement of analytes such as toxic ions. Consequently, successful demonstrations of the proposed sensor technology will facilitate wider market acceptance and penetration of personalized mobile-enabled water quality monitoring devices. Another aspect of the project is to enable ?citizen scientist? to partake in environmental data collection and spread sustainability education. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project proposes to develop a smartphone-based electrical sensor technology for real-time water quality monitoring. Currently, spectrometry, capillary electrophoresis, chemical reduction methods, and gas chromatography coupled mass spectroscopy are some of the most widely used techniques for water quality analysis; however, these instruments are bulky and costly; the methods are time consuming, and involve laborious sample processing steps requiring well-trained personnel in a laboratory setting; In order to meet the market need for a portable, low-cost, and easy-to-use water analysis technology, the project will investigate a smartphone integrated electrical readout sensor platform which will be able to address all of the above issues by: 1) the development of a low-cost, portable sensor package consisting of an electrochemical sensor chip, a driver circuit, and rechargeable battery power for standalone operation; 2) the application of polymer immobilized ion sensing coatings to increase the selectivity during ion detection in a non-laboratory setting; 3) the use of algorithm against calibration curve to automatically detect and quantify toxic ion, and 4) the use of smartphone in-built GPS and mobile broadband function to combine the sensing results with geospatial information and uploaded to the Cloud for further analysis.