SBIR-STTR Award

This project will develop a portable gas analyzer that is capable of identifying and measuring the concentrations of CO2, CO and other trace greenhouse gas constituents. The analyzer will combine a micro-gas chromatograph (GC) with a plasma detector based on Penning Ionization Electron Spectroscopy (PIES), and will provide sample identification that is independent of the GC retention time. In Phase I: (1) PIES spectra for a list of environmentally significant gases will be measured in the range of concentrations required for the environmental analysis; (2) sensitivity limits for CO, CO2, and N2O will be improved to ppb (parts per billion) range by making use of a preconcentrator; (3) PIES spectra for methane and CCl4 will be obtained, and the sensitivity for measuring chlorinated fluorocarbons (CFC’s) will be tested; and (4) environmental trace constituents in air samples, collected in residential and industrial areas, will be measured. Phase II will result in the development of a cost-effective, portable autonomous platform for environmental gas analysis.

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee:
The analyzer should be an attractive analytical device for a large variety of commercial applications such as hazardous species detection, industrial process analysis, and breath control. The device also promises to be of interest to homeland security, oil and refining, and the chemical and petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and food and beverage industries. The ruggedness and low energy and material consumption of the analyzer would permit efficient in situ environmental monitoring of air in workplaces, airports, hospitals, or schools

This project will develop a cost-effective analytical technology platform for identifying and measuring concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide and trace greenhouse gas constituents such as carbon monoxide. The proposed analytical platform is based on Penning Ionization Electron Spectroscopy (PIES) in plasma. PIES technology relies on a simple analog measurement configuration capable of unique identification of chemical species. No optical or high-vacuum equipment is required, which opens up the opportunity to make the proposed analyzer a miniature, low weight, low energy and low material consumption device. Phase I experiments demonstrated capabilities of PIES technology when PIES analytical spectra were obtained in a breadboard version of a PIES detector coupled with a gas chromatograph. In the Phase II project, each element of the Analytical Platform based on PIES technology (APP) will be miniaturized and combined in an integrated analyzer platform capable of in situ real-time identification and monitoring of greenhouse gases. A prototype of the APP analyzer will be developed and tested. In Phase III, the APP will be realized on a single chip.

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee:
Instruments based on APP are intended to serve multiple needs for industries where size, weight, resource and energy consumption requirements are top priority. A portable and rugged APP analyzer will be particularly attractive in fields as: microelectronics (e.g. for monitoring the environment of pure industrial processes), home security, pharmaceutical, biochemical, petrochemical, forensics (e.g., drug screening and toxicology research), and hazardous waste treatment