STTR Phase I: Novel real-time particulate matter (PM) sensor for air quality measurements

这一小企业技术转让研究（STTR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将在于使用本研究项目中开发的拟议的低成本、宽尺寸范围气溶胶传感器准确监测室内和室外空气中颗粒物的能力。吸入气溶胶颗粒会对人体健康产生不利影响，从健康影响的角度来看，关键参数是小于2.5µm的颗粒浓度，即PM2.5。PM2.5的测量对于了解人群在不同环境中所经历的颗粒物暴露程度至关重要。这个项目？他提出的方法是通过对粒子充电并使用灵敏的低电流电路检测其丰度来测量粒子浓度。这种方法允许在宽尺寸范围内以低成本进行测量。大多数目前可用的气溶胶传感器仅对大于~ 500 nm的颗粒敏感，因此对于环境测量是不可靠的。因此，拟议的传感器可能会引起气溶胶研究界和环境空气质量监测行业的极大兴趣。该第一阶段研究项目的技术目标是证明使用电感测技术在10 nm至2.5 µm尺寸范围内精确测量气溶胶浓度的可行性。所提出的项目的智力优势在于电迁移率气溶胶分类，印刷电极，低电流传感电子器件和先进的反演算法的新组合，以产生低成本的实时，宽尺寸范围的气溶胶传感器。通过印刷电极，传感器的信号响应可以定制为与总颗粒体积浓度成比例，从而与PM2.5成比例。研究目标是证明我们的传感器对一系列颗粒类型和尺寸分布进行体积浓度测量的准确性。该项目的成功完成将产生一种原型传感器，可以准确测量不同环境条件下的总气溶胶浓度。这将是最终开发用于大规模空气质量测量的低成本传感器的第一个关键步骤。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase I project will lie in the improved ability to accurately monitor indoor and outdoor airborne particles using the proposed low-cost, broad size-range, aerosol sensor to be developed in this research project. Inhalation of aerosol particles can result in adverse human health effects, with the critical parameter from a health effect perspective being the concentration of particles smaller than 2.5µm, i.e. PM2.5. Measurements of PM2.5 are critical to understand the extent of particulate exposure that populations experience in different environments. This project?s proposed approach is to measure particle concentrations by charging them and sensing their abundance using sensitive low-current circuits. This approach allows for measurements over a broad size range and at low-cost. Most of the currently available aerosol sensors are only sensitive to particles larger than ~ 500 nm, and hence are unreliable for ambient measurements. The proposed sensor will, thus, likely generate a significant interest in the aerosol research community and the ambient air quality monitoring industry.The technical objectives in this Phase I research project are to demonstrate the feasibility of accurate aerosol concentration measurements over a size range of 10 nm to 2.5 µm using an electrical-sensing technique. The intellectual merit of the proposed project lies in the novel combination of electrical-mobility aerosol classification, printed electrodes, low-current sensing electronics, and advanced inversion algorithms to result in a low-cost real-time, wide size-range, aerosol sensor. With printed electrodes, the signal response from the sensor can be tailored to be proportional to total particle volume concentration, and, thus, to PM2.5. The research objectives are to demonstrate the accuracy of volume concentration measurements made with our sensor for a range of particle types and size distributions. The successful completion of this project should result in a prototype sensor that can accurately measure total aerosol concentrations in different ambient conditions. This would be a first critical step towards the final development of a low-cost sensor for large-scale air quality measurements.