SBIR Phase I: Affordable point-of-use water disinfection through mass-produced nano-silver embedded paper filters

这一小企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的拟议更广泛的影响/商业潜力是减少低收入人口饮用水引起的水传播疾病。 2.1 10亿人饮用粪便污染的水，发展中国家50%的住院治疗是由于水传播疾病，受污染的饮用水每年造成50万人死亡。低收入人群不仅要支付水费，而且在绝对值上要比富人高出30%到10倍。这项拟议的技术创新将提供：一种消费品包装水过滤器，即作为消费品定价并通过食品/饮料零售杂货店销售的产品。 这是一种不同于滤水器的商业模式，滤水器作为耐用的家电通过专卖店出售。如果成功的话，一个新的消费者水过滤器类别达到21亿B人的一小部分，有可能代表一个10亿美元的B+类别。该项目将通过挑战性水压力测试创造出性能更强的抗菌滤纸，从而使创新更接近商业化。SBIR第一阶段项目提出通过大规模生产方法（如造纸机）开发纳米银抗菌滤纸，该滤纸可在各种水源中杀菌。 技术障碍包括技术扩展的可靠性，开发质量和压力测试框架，更广泛的抗菌功效和更长的使用寿命。 该项目的目标包括设计一种纸张配方，增加银吸收，更均匀的纳米颗粒合成，协同抗菌化学品，以及可靠的滤纸孔径和流速。 解决这些技术挑战的项目计划包括使用特定挑战化学品和高微生物负荷进行严格的压力测试，基于添加协同抗菌化学品和吸收化学品以增加银吸收的新配方开发，以及造纸机操作过程中的工艺变化（速度、温度、压榨等）。 这些实验将要求新配方在实验室规模和中试规模的每次迭代中进行相同的质量和压力测试后进行评估。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

The proposed broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is the reduction of waterborne disease from drinking water in low-income populations. 2.1 billion people drink fecally-contaminated water, 50% of hospitalization in developing countries are due to waterborne diseases, and contaminated drinking water causes 500,000 diarrheal deaths each year. Low-income populations not only pay for water, but pay anywhere from 30% to 10 times more in absolute terms than the wealthy. This proposed technical innovation will provide: a consumer packaged goods water filter, i.e. a product priced as a consumable and sold through food/beverage retail grocery stores. This is a different business model than water filters which are sold as durable good appliances through specialty stores. If successful a new consumer water filter category reaching a fraction of 2.1 B people has potential to represent a $1B+ category. This proposed project would bring the innovation closer to commercialization by creating a more robust performing antimicrobial filter paper through challenge water stress testing.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a nano-silver antimicrobial filter paper through mass-production methods, e.g. paper machines, that is formulated to be biocidal in a wide variety of water sources. Technical hurdles include the reliability of technology scaling, developing frameworks for quality and stress testing, broader antimicrobial efficacy, and longer use life. The project goals include engineering a paper formulation with increased silver uptake, more uniform nanoparticle synthesis, synergistic antimicrobial chemicals, and reliable filter paper pore size and flow rate. The project plan to address these technical challenges include rigorous stress testing with specific challenge chemicals and high microbial loads, development of new formulations based on adding synergistic antimicrobial chemicals, absorbent chemicals to increase silver uptake, and process variations in the operation of the paper machine (speed, temperature, pressing, etc). These experiments will require new formulations to be evaluated following the same quality and stress tests with each iteration at the bench scale and pilot scale.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.