SBIR Phase I: Point-of-Use MEMS Gas Analyzer

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将是开发一种成本效益高、用户友好、高性能的微系统，适用于现场和现场气体分析应用。气体分析是一个成熟但仍在增长的数十亿美元的全球市场。拟议的产品可以对多个行业和学科产生重大影响，包括食品加工和安全、环境监测、国土安全和生物医学诊断。它将为不同的客户提供以下重要优势：具有高性能的近实时气体分析速度，适用于现场和现场使用的便携性和稳健性，购买和维护成本低，易于使用，以及适用于不同应用的多功能性。此外，在过程和质量控制中使用微系统可以帮助提高生产率，同时节省成本，并且在脆弱环境中自主监测有害气体可以帮助保护工人和公众。拟议的项目将是一个用于使用点气体分析的模块化微系统的概念验证研究。传统的气体分析系统体积庞大，资源和能源密集，耗时，购买，操作和维护费用昂贵。对挥发性有机化合物和其他气相物质的现场和现场测试的需求日益增长，要求开发能够克服这些主要限制的小型化气体分析仪。然而，与这种系统集成和仪器小型化相关的重大技术挑战，传统上导致对分析能力/性能的重大妥协。提出的解决方案是一个模块化的微系统，以灵活和可扩展的格式集成多功能高性能微流控/传感器芯片，适合大规模生产和多种应用。在第一阶段，不同的芯片将被制造并组装成一个测试系统，以研究模块化设计的技术可行性。第二阶段将开发商业原型。拟议产品的成功开发将为解决涉及气体分析的各种市场的未满足需求提供机会。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be the development of a cost-effective, user-friendly, high-performance microsystem suitable for in-field and on-site gas analysis applications. Gas analyses are a mature but still growing multi-billion dollar global market. The proposed product can have significant impact across multiple industries and disciplines, including food processing and safety, environmental monitoring, homeland security, and biomedical diagnostics. It will provide the following important benefits to diverse customers: speed for near-real time gas analysis with high performance, portability and robustness for in-field and on-site uses, low cost to purchase and maintain, ease to use, and versatility for different applications. Additionally, employment of the proposed microsystem in process and quality controls can help improve productivity while saving costs, and autonomously monitoring hazardous gases in vulnerable environments can help protect workers and the public. The proposed project will be a proof-of-concept study on a modular microsystem for point-of-use gas analyses. Conventional gas analysis systems are bulky, resource and energy intensive, time consuming, and expensive to purchase, operate, and maintain. Increasing demands for in-field and on-site testing of volatile organic compounds and other gas phase species call for the development of a miniaturized gas analyzer capable of overcoming these major limitations. However, there are significant technical challenges associated with such system integrations and instrument miniaturizations, which traditionally result in significant compromises to the analytical capability/performance. The proposed solution is a modular microsystem integrating multifunctional high-performance microfluidic/sensor chips in a flexible and expandable format that is suitable for mass production and versatile applications. In Phase I, different chips will be fabricated and assembled into a testing system to investigate the technical feasibility of modular design. A commercial prototype will be developed in Phase II. Successful development of the proposed product will provide opportunities to address unmet needs in a variety of markets involving gas analyses.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.