SBIR Phase II: Measuring Aqueous Metal Concentrations with the Chemometer

The broader impact/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is in promoting the protection of human health, the environment, and our nation's natural resources by providing new sensors that enable fast, accurate, cost-effective sampling and analysis tools to monitor pollution and exposure. The innovations developed here will allow for the rapid identification and detection of hazardous compounds in water at substantially reduced cost. These technological innovations will translate into triple bottom-line savings of companies by enhancing our ability to protect people and the planet, while simultaneously providing cost and time savings to the business. The technology embodies the concepts of sustainability and ease of use, and will achieve broad commercial appeal by saving businesses money, time, and effort while also giving them more data on potential sources of pollution. Scientifically, this technology will enable more precise assessment of environmental pollution by providing more rapid measurement capability at a larger scale than is currently possible. This project will develop an innovative, market-disruptive technology for measuring toxic metals in water. This technology is inexpensive, portable, and does not require any power or external reading equipment. Furthermore, it can be adapted to a wide range of toxic compounds after initial commercialization around metals analysis. The system costs an order of magnitude less than the current "point of need" technologies capable of quantitative determination of toxic metals in water, and two orders of magnitude less than the traditional laboratory tests. Access Sensor Technologies is a new startup, but the core team has a strong track record in the field of microfluidic paper-based analytical devices for environmental analysis where the proposed system represents a major innovation in the field. The proposal has four technical objectives: (1) Expand the palette of applicable chemistry to include additional metals: cadmium, lead, manganese, and both chromium 3+ and 6+; (2) Test the prototype system in a relevant laboratory environment or in a simulated operational environment; (3) Achieve a successful customer-driven demonstration of the system in the field; and (4) Identify key elements of manufacturability that define the roadmap to production of the system at market scale.