SBIR-STTR Award

The goal of this Phase I project is to develop coatings for M8 paper that improve its robustness and rate of detection of potential liquid/aerosol chemical warfare attack at fixed military sites and installations. A problem that is currently experienced with M8 paper is that it is easily contaminated by dust or destroyed by rain and thus requires frequent replacement in outdoor environments. Our initial studies have shown that, while commercially available M8 paper does posses minimal water repellant characteristics, droplets of water stick to the paper’s surface and penetrate into the paper over time, ultimately degrading its performance for CW detection. OSS will develop coatings that eliminate this issue by allowing water droplets to roll off the surface. Specifically, we will modify COTS M8 paper with ultrathin superhydrophobic and oleophilic material coatings that provide a self-cleaning and waterproof surface while retaining the M8 paper’s ability to detect CW agents. The results of phase I work will lead to a technology downselect for the best coating package for scale-up activities. Phase II work will focus on integrating the optimized M8 paper with a self-reporting system to reduce and/or eliminate visual inspection of the M8 detection strips.

Keywords:
M8 Paper, Fixed-Site Facility, Durable Substrate, Liquid Contamination, Chemical Detection, Low-Power Communications, M8 Test Strip, Smart Materials

"The objective of this Phase II project is to design, build, and test a prototype self reporting detection system that utilizes a ruggedized version of M8 chemical agent detection paper for detecting and reporting potential liquid chemical warfare attacks at fixed military sites and installations. During Phase I of this project, a robust, superhydrophobic and oleophilic coating was successfully developed, applied and tested on M8 paper. These tests demonstrated that this ruggedized and improved version of M8 detection strips was able to aggressively repel water and dirt, while still allowing chemical warfare agents to rapidly penetrate the coating and produce the expected color changes on the underlying paper. The proposed detection system for Phase II work will exploit these new capabilities, and will primarily involve the construction and testing of an automated detection system network containing transduction hardware and software capable of reading and self reporting color changes on the coated M8 test strips due to CWA interactions. The self reporting detection system network will be able to continuously monitor military facilities for CWA attacks and report positive alarms to military personnel in real time, thereby facilitating interoperability with integrated base defense and mobile force protection needs."

Keywords:
"m8 Paper, Fixed-Site Facility, Durable Substrate, Liquid Contamination, Chemical Detection, Low-Power Communications, M8 Test Strip, Smart Materials"