SBIR Phase I: Point-of-Use MEMS Gas Analyzer

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be the development of a cost-effective, user-friendly, high-performance microsystem suitable for in-field and on-site gas analysis applications. Gas analyses are a mature but still growing multi-billion dollar global market. The proposed product can have significant impact across multiple industries and disciplines, including food processing and safety, environmental monitoring, homeland security, and biomedical diagnostics. It will provide the following important benefits to diverse customers: speed for near-real time gas analysis with high performance, portability and robustness for in-field and on-site uses, low cost to purchase and maintain, ease to use, and versatility for different applications. Additionally, employment of the proposed microsystem in process and quality controls can help improve productivity while saving costs, and autonomously monitoring hazardous gases in vulnerable environments can help protect workers and the public. The proposed project will be a proof-of-concept study on a modular microsystem for point-of-use gas analyses. Conventional gas analysis systems are bulky, resource and energy intensive, time consuming, and expensive to purchase, operate, and maintain. Increasing demands for in-field and on-site testing of volatile organic compounds and other gas phase species call for the development of a miniaturized gas analyzer capable of overcoming these major limitations. However, there are significant technical challenges associated with such system integrations and instrument miniaturizations, which traditionally result in significant compromises to the analytical capability/performance. The proposed solution is a modular microsystem integrating multifunctional high-performance microfluidic/sensor chips in a flexible and expandable format that is suitable for mass production and versatile applications. In Phase I, different chips will be fabricated and assembled into a testing system to investigate the technical feasibility of modular design. A commercial prototype will be developed in Phase II. Successful development of the proposed product will provide opportunities to address unmet needs in a variety of markets involving gas analyses. 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.