NANOSTRUCTURED SENSOR ARRAY FOR AIR QUALITY MONITORING

空气污染物的检测对于评估工业和商业建筑、学校、医院和私人住宅的室内空气质量非常重要。美国环保署估计，室内空气质量差每年造成超过1.25亿个上学日和超过1000万个工作日的损失，影响了33%至50%的美国商业建筑。目前的空气质量监测方法有许多缺点。纳米结构材料具有小的晶粒尺寸、大量的晶界和高的比表面积，为开发具有显著改善的性能的空气质量控制传感器提供了新的机会。该项目旨在开发一种基于纳米结构传感器阵列的紧凑、强大、实时的室内空气质量监测系统。该阵列将由自组织纳米多孔材料微机械加工而成，该材料将容纳具有纳米工程形态和化学成分的敏感元件，根据应用要求量身定制，并实现先进的性能。在第一阶段，将开发通用传感器阵列原型，并展示其检测挥发性有机化合物和甲醛的性能优点。第二阶段将进一步开发和扩大该技术，生产用于特定应用的传感器阵列，并开始商业化。拟议的商业应用：由于对用于室内空气质量评估的低成本实时检测器的关键需求，拟议的技术具有显着的商业潜力。所提出的传感器阵列如果实现，将很快在医疗保健设施、化学、汽车和建筑材料工业、学校、私人住宅等中得到广泛接受。

Detection of air pollutants is of great importance for evaluating indoor air quality in industrial and commercial buildings, schools, hospitals, and private homes. The EPA estimates that poor indoor air quality is responsible for over 125 million lost school days and over 10 million lost work days each year and affects 33 to 50% of U.S. commercial buildings. Current approaches to air quality monitoring have multiple drawbacks. Nanostructured materials, with their small grain size, large number of grain boundaries and high specific area, present new opportunities for the development of sensors for air quality control with significantly improved properties. The proposed effort aims to develop a compact, robust, real-time monitoring system for indoor air quality, based on an array of nanostructured sensors. The array will be micromachined from self-organized nanoporous material, which will host sensitive elements with nanoengineered morphology and chemical composition, tailored to the application requirements and enabling advanced performance. During Phase I generic sensor array prototypes will be developed and their performance merit for detecting of volatile organic compounds and formaldehyde will be demonstrated. Phase Il will further develop and scale-up the technology, produce sensor arrays for specific applications, and begin commercialization. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: Proposed technology has a significant commercial potential due to a critical demand for low-cost, real-time detectors for indoor air quality assessment. Proposed sensor array, if realized, would quickly find widespread acceptance in health care facilities, chemical, automotive, and building materials industries, schools, private homes, etc.