Lab-on-a-chip sensors for organic pollutants in homes

Exposure to hazardous organic compounds (OCs) in the indoor environment can cause serious health issues. There are no commercially available devices for inexpensive autonomous continuous monitoring of OCs that generates actionable data (identification and quantification of the compound) that can be used for reducing the health risks associated with OC exposure. The proposed sensor technology has performance of laboratory grade analytical instruments and usability of a smoke detector. Preliminary work clearly demonstrates the feasibility of the sensor technology. A unique feature and a breakthrough in sensor technology is the ability to chemically identify a compound at trace level concentrations. The global air quality monitoring equipment market expected to reach 6.1 billion by 2019. We have indentified the industries those produce excess amount of OCs such as the petroleum industry as the early adopter of the technology. We intend to develop an industrial monitor using the technology developed at the end of Phase I. The non-industrial OC monitor market has not shown much potential due to limitations of the sensor technology. We intend to expand this market using a low cost sensor module that generates actionable information with minimum additional cost to the end user at the end of Phase