Auto-calibrating, Air Quality Monitoring System

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Auto-calibrating, Air Quality Monitoring System Project Summary: In 2021 there were roughly 529,000 workers in the US chemical manufacturing industries, and 226,840 “Extraction” workers in the U.S. oil & gas industry. With massive recent growth of the U.S. oil and gas industries and anticipated future growth, worker exposures, to harmful levels of petrochemicals, are growing and likely will increase. From 2003-2015, this industry reported 148 fatal injuries from exposures to “chemicals and chemical products.” The effects of long-term exposure are not well tracked. In this Phase I SBIR Seacoast Science, Inc. proposes to develop a fully automated system to support monitoring of indoor air quality (IAQ) in the workplace. The proposed monitor combines a low-cost detector, twin trap-and-purge collectors, and the separation and resolving power of gas chromatography to (1) collect and analyze air in its immediate environment, (2) provide wirelessly networked data to industrial hygienists to track workplace exposure, (3) reduce the per-sample analytical costs by automatically cycling between air sample collection, analysis, and calibration, without user intervention. Remote programmability will provide unattended operation. In this Phase I we will prototype an analyzer targeting occupational hazards such as benzene at least 10x below OSHA action level (0.5ppm over 8-hr TWA) for the petrochemical industry. However, the system will be modular, allowing for future customization other air-monitoring markets. Seacoast will integrate industry standard thermal desorption (TD) tubes, selected from NIOSH and OSHA sampling and analytical methods with appropriate materials for petrochemical hazards, into an oven-less resistively heated Mini GC system. The system will cycle between tubes to provide uninterrupted monitoring, where sampling and analysis occurs in parallel, increasing data throughput. We will select a chromatography column, specifically for high resolution separation of BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene), and similar occupational hazards in and around petrochemical industries, from interfering compounds. A high-sensitivity chemical detector – photoionization (PID) – is selected for its high sensitivity to hydrocarbons and insensitivity to humidity and CO2. A key feature of the proposed system is the development of auto-calibration and system purge validation. Sub-systems and protocols will be integrated using an innovative manifold with dedicated sample loop to allow the system to self-correct for detector drift and to detect impurities. The system will be inexpensive compared to common in-laboratory analytical instruments (e. g. GC/MS), and portable for easy setup. At under $7,500, the system's ability to provide data throughout a work shift, allows for a much lower cost per sample than the traditional means of sample collection. At this price, air quality investigators can have an hourly or daily stream of data, rather than weekly or monthly data. Seacoast will work with Markes International to validate the Phase I prototype using their analytical labs, and with Viking Consultants to validate the market and develop protocols.