I-Corps: Smart Surface Sensors

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是改善美国的食品和健康产品安全。 这可以减少与表面上的细菌引起的疾病和感染相关的经济负担。 所提出的技术可用于确定是否遵守用于保持食品和医疗保健设施安全的清洁协议。 它还可用于帮助监测慢性伤口，从而减少常规状态检查的临床访问次数。 在封闭环境中进行生物膜的真实的时间测量的能力目前在市场上不可用。 这项技术可能会对食品安全和医疗保健市场产生潜在影响。I-Corps项目将进一步开发无线传感器平台技术，用于监测封闭系统（如绷带）或表面（如食品准备区或医疗保健柜台）上的生物膜或液体积聚的增长。传感器是一种平台技术，由灵活的传感器、读取器和用于转换无线信号的算法组成。 传感器是一个平面的阿基米德线圈，它是一个开路电感电容器，形成一个谐振结构。 它可以放置在表面材料或绷带上或表面材料或绷带中。 当细胞或生物膜在谐振器的表面上生长时，这改变了局部电介质，并且观察到谐振频率的大偏移。 该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to improve food and health product safety in the US. This can reduce the economic burden associated with disease and infection caused by bacteria on surfaces. The proposed technology can be used to determine adherence to cleaning protocols that are used to keep food and healthcare facilities safe. It can also be used to help monitor chronic wounds, thus reducing the number of clinical visits for routine status check-ups. The ability to conduct real time measurement of biofilms in a closed environment is currently unavailable in the market. This technology can potentially impact food safety and also health care markets.This I-Corps project will further develop a wireless sensor platform technology that is proposed for use in monitoring growth of biofilms or fluid build-up in closed systems such as bandages or on surfaces such as food preparation areas or healthcare counters. The sensor is a platform technology that consists of a flexible sensor, a reader, and algorithm to translate the wireless signal. The sensor is a planar, Archimedean coil that is an open circuit inductor capacitor that forms a resonant structure. It can be placed on or in surface materials or bandages. As cells or a biofilm grow on the surface of the resonator, this changes the local dielectric and a large shift in the resonant frequency is observed. This can be sampled wirelessly using a vector network analyzer.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.