SBIR Phase I: Affordable point-of-use water disinfection through mass-produced nano-silver embedded paper filters

SBIR 第一阶段：通过批量生产的纳米银嵌入式纸过滤器实现经济实惠的使用点水消毒

• 批准号: 1843411
• 负责人: Theresa Dankovich
• 金额: $ 22.5万
• 依托单位: FOLIA Materials Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1843411&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Affordable; point; use

The proposed broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is the reduction of waterborne disease from drinking water in low-income populations. 2.1 billion people drink fecally-contaminated water, 50% of hospitalization in developing countries are due to waterborne diseases, and contaminated drinking water causes 500,000 diarrheal deaths each year. Low-income populations not only pay for water, but pay anywhere from 30% to 10 times more in absolute terms than the wealthy. This proposed technical innovation will provide: a consumer packaged goods water filter, i.e. a product priced as a consumable and sold through food/beverage retail grocery stores. This is a different business model than water filters which are sold as durable good appliances through specialty stores. If successful a new consumer water filter category reaching a fraction of 2.1 B people has potential to represent a $1B+ category. This proposed project would bring the innovation closer to commercialization by creating a more robust performing antimicrobial filter paper through challenge water stress testing.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a nano-silver antimicrobial filter paper through mass-production methods, e.g. paper machines, that is formulated to be biocidal in a wide variety of water sources. Technical hurdles include the reliability of technology scaling, developing frameworks for quality and stress testing, broader antimicrobial efficacy, and longer use life. The project goals include engineering a paper formulation with increased silver uptake, more uniform nanoparticle synthesis, synergistic antimicrobial chemicals, and reliable filter paper pore size and flow rate. The project plan to address these technical challenges include rigorous stress testing with specific challenge chemicals and high microbial loads, development of new formulations based on adding synergistic antimicrobial chemicals, absorbent chemicals to increase silver uptake, and process variations in the operation of the paper machine (speed, temperature, pressing, etc). These experiments will require new formulations to be evaluated following the same quality and stress tests with each iteration at the bench scale and pilot scale.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.

这项小企业创新研究项目拟议的更广泛影响/商业潜力是减少低收入人口饮用水中的水传播疾病。21亿人饮用被粪便污染的水，发展中国家50%的住院治疗是由于水传播疾病，受污染的饮用水每年造成50万人死于腹泻。低收入人群不仅要支付水费，而且要比富人多支付30%到10倍的绝对金额。这项拟议的技术创新将提供：一种包装消费品滤水器，即一种定价为消耗品并通过食品/饮料零售杂货店销售的产品。这是一种不同于通过专卖店作为耐用电器出售的滤水器的商业模式。如果成功的话，一个新的消费者滤水器类别将有可能成为一个价值10亿美元以上的类别。这个拟议的项目将通过挑战水压力测试创造出性能更强的抗菌滤纸，从而使创新更接近商业化。该SBIR一期项目建议通过大规模生产方法（例如造纸机）开发纳米银抗菌滤纸，该滤纸的配方可在各种水源中具有生物杀灭作用。技术障碍包括技术扩展的可靠性、制定质量和压力测试框架、更广泛的抗菌功效和更长的使用寿命。该项目的目标包括设计一种具有更高银吸收率、更均匀的纳米颗粒合成、协同抗菌化学物质和可靠的滤纸孔径和流速的纸张配方。解决这些技术挑战的项目计划包括使用特定挑战化学品和高微生物负荷进行严格的压力测试，开发基于添加增效抗菌化学品的新配方，吸收性化学品以增加银的吸收率，以及造纸机操作中的工艺变化（速度，温度，压榨等）。这些实验将需要在每次迭代中在实验规模和试验规模上进行相同的质量和压力测试，然后对新的配方进行评估。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。