SBIR Phase I: A Novel Microwave Based Plasma System for Analytical Atomic Spectrometry

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目将产生关键的分析光谱数据和分析仪器优化，这是用于原子光谱分析的创新微波诱导等离子体(MIP)技术成功商业化所需的。这项技术有望对痕量元素分析产生重大影响，为当前标准的电感耦合等离子体(ICP)提供一种低成本、便携、广泛适用的替代方法。随着便携式技术的市场占有率接近30%，价值40亿美元的全球原子光谱分析市场即将发生重大变化。拟议中的MIP创新将提供首个分析性能接近桌面设备的便携式解决方案，从而继续推动这一市场的增长。新的灵活性水平将允许在以前不考虑的应用和地点进行痕量元素分析。这种差异化技术的社会影响使最终用户而不是大型实验室能够通过分析测量和现场监测样品中的低水平金属来量化其环境足迹。大多数发达国家和发展中国家正在实施新的更严格的环境和安全法规，这将确保这一市场需求只会随着时间的推移而增长。该项目的智力优势来自于一种创新的、多学科的和协作的方法，以应对长期存在的技术挑战，即在微波频率上创造纯粹的感应等离子体。材料科学、电磁场、等离子体物理和分析化学都在拟议的解决方案中发挥了重要作用，其中由先进技术陶瓷制成的环取代了铜线圈。这种陶瓷材料在低频下几乎是一种完美的绝缘体，是微波介质极化电流的近乎理想的介质。这些电流在MIP中产生纯粹的感应场，在微波频率产生类似于电感耦合等离子体的等离子体，较低的损耗、成本、尺寸和功率要求使便携性成为可能。产生的环形等离子体对样品加载和分析区域表现出与标准电感耦合等离子体直接相当的稳健性。拟议的项目包括在一家小企业和一家知名学术机构的合作下，开发、表征和优化新的MIP。这项研究有望为痕量元素分析产生可靠的MIP性能指标，并评估MIP对干扰或基质效应的敏感性，以验证拟议的便携式MIP光学发射光谱仪产品的商业定位。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will generate crucial analytical spectroscopy data and analytical instrument optimization required for the successful commercialization of an innovative microwave-induced plasma (MIP) technology for atomic spectroscopy analysis. This technology promises to have a significant impact on trace elemental analysis by providing a low-cost, portable, widely-applicable alternative to the current standard inductively coupled plasma (ICP). With portable technology now approaching 30% market share, the $4 billion global atomic spectroscopy market is poised to undergo a major change. The proposed MIP innovation will continue to drive the growth of this market by providing the first portable solution with analytical performance approaching that of a tabletop unit. The new level of flexibility will allow trace elemental analysis in applications and locations where it would not have been previously considered. The societal impact of this differentiating technology empowers end users, rather than large laboratories, with a means to quantify their environmental footprint through the analytical measurement and in-situ monitoring of low level of metals in samples. The ongoing introduction of new and stricter environmental and safety regulations in most developed and developing nations will ensure that this market need will only grow over time. The intellectual merit of this project derives from an innovative, multidisciplinary, and collaborative approach to a long standing technical challenge of creating a purely inductive plasma at microwave frequencies. Materials science, electromagnetic fields, plasma physics, and analytical chemistry all play an important role in the proposed solution where a copper coil is replaced by a ring made of advanced technical ceramic. The ceramic material, an almost perfect insulator at low frequencies, is a nearly ideal medium for microwave dielectric polarization currents. These currents generate a pure inductive field in MIP, leading to an ICP-like plasma at microwave frequencies, where lower losses, cost, size, and power requirements make the portability possible. The resulting toroidal plasma exhibits robustness to sample loading and analytical zones directly comparable to standard ICP. The proposed project includes the development, characterization, and optimization of the new MIP in a collaboration between a small business and a renowned academic institution. The research is expected to generate reliable MIP performance metrics for trace elemental analysis and to assess the susceptibility of MIP to interferences or matrix effects in order to validate the proposed commercial positioning for a portable MIP optical emission spectrometer product.