SBIR Phase I: Laser Photoacoustic Sensor for Air Toxic and Trace Gas Compounds

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project aims at developing laser photoacoustic spectroscopy (LPAS) sensor for continuous, real-time measurements of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), and other air pollutants such as Carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide. The intellectual merit of the activity lies in the creation of a new a operationally simple, low cost, robust, compact, ruggedized field-deployable and affordable ambient air and stationary source pollution sensor that is capable of real-time measuring multiple pollutant and toxic compounds simultaneously. The instrument will use the newly advanced quantum cascade laser (QCL) or interband cascade laser (ICL) absorption to accurately quantify multiple chemical compounds within a short period of time (~ 40 to 60 seconds) with a precision of sub parts per billion. The broader/commercial impacts of this research are expected to be within numerous areas including: 1) Air toxic measurements, such as ambient air and stationary source pollution monitoring, industrial hygiene monitoring, confined space monitoring and process emission monitoring, etc. 2) Global atmospheric monitoring of air toxics, air pollutants, greenhouse gases, and trace species. 3) Military applications. Besides the environmental and industrial application, many other military applications including detection of Chemical Warfare Agent (CWA), explosives, TICs, can make use of the devices developed in this project. Potential customers include the EPA, NOAA or NASA for environmental monitoring, DoD for detection of IED (JIEDDO), the DHS for detection of explosives and scanning of luggage (TSA), etc.