SBIR-STTR Award

Wild fires produce significant air pollution posing health risks to first responders residents in nearby areas and downwind communities. Wildfires are increasing in size and intensity and the fire season is growing longer. Technologies for measuring air pollutants including particulates carbon monoxide nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide over the wide range of levels expected in areas downwind of wild l and fires are needed. KWJ proposes to integrate printed gas sensors and particle sensor into a single 8oz package with the dimensions 4"x5"x1" (10x12.5x2.5cm). In Phase I we propose using a prototype 7-gas board we have developed in collaboration with Intel and integrate with Alphasense's VOC and OPC-R1 PM sensor which is the current state-of-the-art in miniature optical particle detection. We plan to design a package which can be deployed in a variety of ways: worn by personnel attached to "javelins" which can be located and relocated around the perimeter by shoving into the ground on vehicles and - with the rapid advancement in small UAV capabilities and range - deployed around the fire perimeter on drones. In Phase II we plan to build and test an electrostatic PM sensor which will measure particles down to 5nm and use far less power than the optical sensors. Very small light-weight unobtrusive monitoring systems will broaden the conditions under which exposure studies can be performed and will remove the need for awkward bulky or inconvenient sampling/collection devices and batteries. This system will expand the scope of air quality monitoring and provide increased capability to produce personalized data from mobile individuals thus improving the ability of agencies to map pollutant levels protect human health and well being relative to environmental inhalation hazards. The ultrafine particle sensor developed during Phase II of this project will complement KWJ's new class of amperometric gas sensor the screen-printed electrochemical sensor (SPEC) deliver high performance sensing for a wide range of applications at commodity-level prices. This new cost-competitive high performance electrostatic ultrafine particle technology will bridge the cost-performance gap for particulate measurement applications just as the printed amperometric sensor has done for gaseous monitoring.

Wildland fires produce a significant amount of air pollution often over very large areas.Wildfires produce significant air pollution including VOCs such as formaldehyde and other aldehydesCO O3 nitrogen oxides (NOx) SO2 and particulate matter (PM). These pollutants pose healthand safety risks to first responders as well as residents in nearby areas and downwind communities.Also wild fires are increasing in size and intensity and the fire season is growing longer.KWJ has developed a line of small low-cost yet accurate electrochemical gas sensors with verylow-power electronics. KWJ is also working with several collaborators to develop of an ultralowpower sensor for monitoring atmospheric "ultrafine" particulate. For particulate we propose todevelop a miniature extremely low-power electrostatic PM monitor by integrating our patented"diffuse plasma ionization sources" (DPIS) with electrostatic plates for fractionation andmeasurement of particulate.We plan to integrate the gas and particulate sensors into a single low-power and lightweightpackage which can be deployed in distributed networks of stationary as well as wearable/mobilesensor modules will provide greatly enhanced air quality and personal exposure monitoring. Asmobile pollutant/hazard monitoring platforms gain acceptance across the health and safety industryand with consumers the number of potential applications is also increasing. Applications for sucha small ultralow power broad spectrum package of gas and particle sensors include urbanpollution monitoring source and perimeter monitoring on and around refineries and chemicalfacilities and confined space monitoring in busy enclosed spaces such as subways and trainstations.