SBIR Phase I: Optimizing Ion Mobility Spectrometry for Distributed Chemical Sensing

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力旨在生产一种高性能、低功耗、不需要放射性电离源的电子化学传感器系统。在更加分散和连接的网络中实现低成本、无放射性的物联网（IoT）系统，对许多行业具有潜在的深远影响。创建一个物联网传感器网络，以安全地实时监测大规模分布的化学特征，可能会提供新的分析质量化学传感能力。传感器的应用范围包括工程（监测发酵）、医疗（诊断）、环境监测（空气质量）、国防和安全（危害检测）或农业（减少废物）。化学采样和传感器平台具有与手机和自动系统集成的潜力。个人使用设备的市场可能是巨大的。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目旨在建立一个实验和理论框架，以优化差分迁移率光谱（DMS）用于分析质量化学鉴定。有许多类型的化学传感器已经商业化，但没有高质量的系统满足成功连接物联网系统所需的性能，安全性和成本限制。DMS的基础物理和商业用途已经很好地建立，因此它是这种用途的主要候选者。该系统的基础是一个小型化的DMS。由于微芯片使用锂离子聚合物电池，因此它具有广泛分散的物联网化学传感的潜力，但依赖放射性同位素进行化学电离是限制商业应用的关键障碍。这一技术障碍可以通过结合一种非放射性的、基于等离子体的化学电离方法来克服。实验结果将用于验证定制软件来模拟该复杂系统的性能。如果可以成功地对组合系统的性能进行建模，则可以进一步小型化和优化。天然气气味剂和选定的食品和风味化合物的检测已被选为初步的概念验证商业应用。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 Phase I project seeks to produce a high performance, low power, electronic chemical sensor system that does not require a radioactive ionization source. Achieving a low cost, non-radioactive Internet of Things (IoT) systems for chemical sensing in a more distributed and connected network has potentially far reaching implications in many industries. Creating an IoT network of sensors to safely monitor chemical signatures on a large and distributed scale, in real-time, may provide new analytical-quality chemical sensing capabilities. Sensor applications may range from engineering (monitoring fermentations) and to health care (diagnostics), to environmental monitoring (air quality) and defense and security (hazard detection) or agriculture (waste mitigation). The chemical sampling and sensor platform has the potential to be integrated with cell phones and autonomous systems. The market for personal use devices could be substantial.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to establish an experimental and theoretical framework to optimize Differential Mobility Spectrometry (DMS) for analytical quality chemical identification. There are many types of chemical sensors that have been commercialized but no high-quality systems meet the performance, safety, and cost constraints required to be a successfully linked in an IoT system. The fundamental physics and commercial utility of DMS is well established, so it is a leading candidate for this use. The foundation of the system is a miniaturized DMS. Because the microchip operates on lithium ion polymer batteries, it has the potential for widely dispersed IoT-linked chemical sensing but the reliance on radioactive isotopes for chemical ionization is a critical barrier to adoption that limits commercial applications. This technical barrier may be overcome by combining a non-radioactive, plasma-based method of chemical ionization. The experimental results will be used to validate custom software to simulate performance of this complex system. If the performance of the combined system can be successfully modeled, it can be further miniaturized and optimized. The detection of natural gas odorants and selected food and flavor compounds have been selected as initial proof-of-concept commercial applications.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.