STTR Phase I: Bio-optical Sensor for the Direct Detection of Sinking Marine Particles

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This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).The broader impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is a stronger understanding of how living things absorb carbon in the ocean. It is important to have an accurate measure of the natural carbon uptake by the ocean because this affects ocean and fishery health, as well as future efforts to intentionally sequester carbon in the ocean to mitigate climate change. This goal will be achieved by developing a low-cost sensor that can be widely deployed on ocean robots, which are already being used to measure processes like ocean heat uptake. The sensor will use light to detect sinking debris in the ocean. This debris is a major way that carbon is naturally sequestered in the ocean. Distributed, robotic platforms in the ocean allow observations to be made in locations and seasons that are not accessible with research ships. Such platforms are generally lower cost than sensors associated with research ships. Development and sale of sensors for robotic platforms are areas of growth because of the increasing reliance on these platforms for scientific observations. This project may also enhance academic and industry partnerships and help to train upcoming scientists and engineers in instrument development.There is a significant desire to expand measurements of ocean biological carbon pump processes to better understand climate change, in particular the flux of carbon by particles settling out of the surface ocean. This project will create a sensor that is designed to be carried aboard globally distributed, autonomous profiling floats. The sensors/floats may help distinguish among the different modes of biological carbon uptake in the ocean. The sensor will be designed from the ground up to meet the challenges of sampling floats, which have stringent power consumption, cost, and data quality-control requirements. The sensor will also have specific optical and housing geometry characteristics tailored for measurement of sinking particle fluxes. The development stages will consist of optical modeling of proposed sensor geometries, modeling of particle collection efficiencies of different housing geometries, laboratory testing of model particles, and dissemination of results to the scientific community.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.