SBIR Phase II: Measuring Aqueous Metal Concentrations with the Chemometer

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业影响是，通过提供能够实现快速、准确、经济高效的采样和分析工具来监测污染和暴露，促进对人类健康、环境和我国自然资源的保护。这里开发的创新将允许以显著降低的成本快速识别和检测水中的危险化合物。这些技术创新通过增强我们保护人类和地球的能力，同时为企业节省成本和时间，将转化为公司三倍的底线节省。这项技术体现了可持续发展和易用性的概念，通过为企业节省资金、时间和精力，同时为他们提供更多关于潜在污染源的数据，将获得广泛的商业吸引力。从科学上讲，这项技术将提供比目前可能的规模更大的更快速的测量能力，从而能够更准确地评估环境污染。该项目将开发一种创新的、扰乱市场的水中有毒金属测量技术。这项技术价格低廉，便于携带，不需要任何电力或外部阅读设备。此外，在围绕金属分析进行初步商业化后，它可以适应范围广泛的有毒化合物。该系统的成本比目前能够定量测定水中有毒金属的“需求点”技术低一个数量级，比传统的实验室测试低两个数量级。Access传感器技术公司是一家新成立的公司，但其核心团队在用于环境分析的微流控纸基分析设备领域有着良好的记录，建议的系统代表着该领域的一项重大创新。该提案有四个技术目标：(1)扩大适用化学的调色板，以包括更多的金属：镉、铅、锰以及铬(3+)和铬(6+)；(2)在相关实验室环境或模拟操作环境中测试原型系统；(3)在现场实现客户驱动的系统成功演示；(4)确定确定系统在市场规模生产路线图的可制造性关键要素。

The broader impact/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is in promoting the protection of human health, the environment, and our nation's natural resources by providing new sensors that enable fast, accurate, cost-effective sampling and analysis tools to monitor pollution and exposure. The innovations developed here will allow for the rapid identification and detection of hazardous compounds in water at substantially reduced cost. These technological innovations will translate into triple bottom-line savings of companies by enhancing our ability to protect people and the planet, while simultaneously providing cost and time savings to the business. The technology embodies the concepts of sustainability and ease of use, and will achieve broad commercial appeal by saving businesses money, time, and effort while also giving them more data on potential sources of pollution. Scientifically, this technology will enable more precise assessment of environmental pollution by providing more rapid measurement capability at a larger scale than is currently possible.This project will develop an innovative, market-disruptive technology for measuring toxic metals in water. This technology is inexpensive, portable, and does not require any power or external reading equipment. Furthermore, it can be adapted to a wide range of toxic compounds after initial commercialization around metals analysis. The system costs an order of magnitude less than the current "point of need" technologies capable of quantitative determination of toxic metals in water, and two orders of magnitude less than the traditional laboratory tests. Access Sensor Technologies is a new startup, but the core team has a strong track record in the field of microfluidic paper-based analytical devices for environmental analysis where the proposed system represents a major innovation in the field. The proposal has four technical objectives: (1) Expand the palette of applicable chemistry to include additional metals: cadmium, lead, manganese, and both chromium 3+ and 6+; (2) Test the prototype system in a relevant laboratory environment or in a simulated operational environment; (3) Achieve a successful customer-driven demonstration of the system in the field; and (4) Identify key elements of manufacturability that define the roadmap to production of the system at market scale.