SBIR Phase II: Development of an industrial flow meter for low-volume dispensing

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目解决了小剂量配药市场的一个未得到满足的需求(每年356.3亿美元)。制药、医疗器械、农业和消费品行业都精心策划了刺激感官的浓缩液混合物，需要以高效、准确和精确的方式提供极小的体积，以最大限度地减少材料损失，确保客户满意，同时最大限度地减少对环境的影响。此外，香料和香料的家庭混合或农业中的实时营养混合等终端应用已显示出特别高的需求。目前的分配技术无法满足滩头客户的独特需求，因为竞争对手的技术太大、太贵，或者无法测量可能高度粘滞或不透明的各种流体。新的方法承诺为最终用户带来功能，这目前只有在高度受控的工业环境中才能实现。除了与这种弹性长丝测速(EFV)技术商业化相关的经济影响外，这些新产品还将有助于减轻精准农业对环境的影响，提高分配材料的集中度，从而降低运输和稀释成本。该项目验证了一种精确和精密的流量计，用于测量高浓度材料的小流量，使低流量流体的即时分配能够创建定制的混合物，以满足最终用户的需求。这项技术利用了EFV，这是一种新的方法，它使用基于应变的传感器，通过传感元件的变形来响应流体流动，传感元件的阻力随着流体速度的变化而变化。概念验证探头具有可灭菌、高精度和资源高效的特点，使客户能够准确地在广泛的粘度范围内分配少量液体，使产量提高多达20倍，占地面积减少75%，成本降低95%，精确度和精确度都有所提高。这些性能直接满足了包括药品配药、科学研发和制造在内的多个行业领域的客户需求，最初的重点是食品和饮料、香料和香料以及精准农业的最终用途应用。这项研究将通过展示和扩展探测器的技术能力来实现产品与市场的匹配，从而显著降低技术商业化的风险。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project addresses an unmet need in the small dose dispensing market ($35.63 billion annually). The pharmaceutical, medical device, agriculture, and consumer product sectors all have carefully curated sensory-stimulating mixtures of concentrated liquids and need to deliver extremely small volumes in an efficient, accurate, and precise manner to minimize lost materials and ensure the satisfaction of their customers, while minimizing environmental impacts. Additionally, end-use applications such as in-home mixing of flavors and fragrances or real-time on-the-fly nutrient mixing in agriculture have demonstrated a particularly high need. Current dispensing technologies do not meet the unique needs of beachhead customers as competing technologies are too large, expensive, or unable to measure a wide array of fluids that may be highly viscous or opaque. The new approach promises to bring functionality to end users, that is only currently possible in highly controlled industrial settings. In addition to the economic impacts associated with the commercialization of this elastic filament velocimetry (EFV) technology, these new products will also help to mitigate the environmental impacts of precision agriculture, increasing the concentration of dispensed materials, and thereby reducing transportation and dilution costs. This project validates an accurate and precise flow meter for measuring small flow rates of highly concentrated materials, enabling on-the-fly dispensing of low-volume fluids to create customized mixtures to meet end user needs. The technology utilizes EFV, a novel approach that uses a strain-based sensor that responds to fluid flow by deformation of a sensing element which changes its resistance in relation to fluid velocity. The proof-of-concept probe is sterilizable, highly accurate, and resource-efficient, enabling customers to accurately dispense small volumes of fluids across a broad range of viscosities with up to twenty-fold increase in throughput, 75% footprint reduction, and 95% reduction in cost, with increased accuracy and precision. These properties directly meet the needs of customers in several industrial segments including pharmaceutical dispensing, scientific research and development, and manufacturing, with an initial focus on end-use applications in food and beverage, flavors and fragrances, and precision agriculture. The research will significantly de-risk commercialization of the technology by demonstrating and expanding the technical capabilities of the probe to achieve product-market fit.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.