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

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。这项小型企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响是对生物如何吸收海洋中的碳有了更深入的了解。准确测量海洋的自然碳吸收量非常重要，因为这影响海洋和渔业健康，也影响未来有意将碳封存在海洋中以减缓气候变化的努力。这一目标将通过开发一种低成本的传感器来实现，这种传感器可以广泛部署在海洋机器人上，这些机器人已经被用于测量海洋热吸收等过程。该传感器将利用光线探测海洋中下沉的碎片。这些碎片是碳在海洋中自然隔离的主要方式。海洋中的分布式机器人平台可以在科考船无法到达的地点和季节进行观测。这种平台的成本通常低于与科考船相关的传感器。机器人平台传感器的开发和销售是增长领域，因为越来越依赖这些平台进行科学观察。该项目还可以加强学术和工业伙伴关系，并有助于培训仪器开发方面的未来科学家和工程师。人们迫切希望扩大对海洋生物碳泵过程的测量，以便更好地了解气候变化，特别是从海洋表面沉降的颗粒所产生的碳通量。该项目将开发一种传感器，可搭载在全球分布的自主分析浮标上。传感器/浮标可以帮助区分海洋中不同的生物碳吸收模式。该传感器将从头开始设计，以满足采样浮标的挑战，采样浮标具有严格的功耗、成本和数据质量控制要求。该传感器还将具有为测量下沉粒子通量量身定制的特定光学和外壳几何特性。开发阶段将包括提出的传感器几何形状的光学建模，不同房屋几何形状的颗粒收集效率建模，模型颗粒的实验室测试以及向科学界传播结果。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。

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.