KWJ ENGINEERING INC — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.1

Description

Wild fires produce significant air pollution posing health risks to first responders residents in nearby areasand downwind communities. Wildfires are increasing in size and intensity and the fire season is growinglonger. Technologies for measuring air pollutants including particulates carbon monoxide nitrogen dioxideand carbon dioxide over the wide range of levels expected in areas downwind of wildland fires are needed.KWJ proposes to integrate printed gas sensors and particle sensor into a single <8oz package with thedimensions <4"x5"x1" (10x12.5x2.5cm). In Phase I we propose using a prototype 7-gas board we havedeveloped in collaboration with Intel and integrate with Alphasense's VOC and OPC-R1 PM sensor which isthe current state-of-the-art in miniature optical particle detection. We plan to design a package which can bedeployed in a variety of ways: worn by personnel attached to "javelins" which can be located and relocatedaround the perimeter by shoving into the ground on vehicles and - with the rapid advancement in small UAVcapabilities and range - deployed around the fire perimeter on drones. In Phase II we plan to build and test anelectrostatic PM sensor which will measure particles down to 5nm and use far less power than the opticalsensors.Very small light-weight unobtrusive monitoring systems will broaden the conditions under which exposurestudies can be performed and will remove the need for awkward bulky or inconvenient sampling/collectiondevices and batteries.This system will expand the scope of air quality monitoring and provide increasedcapability to produce personalized data from mobile individuals thus improving the ability of agencies to mappollutant 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 ofamperometric gas sensor the screen-printed electrochemical sensor (SPEC) deliver high performancesensing for a wide range of applications at commodity-level prices. This new cost-competitive highperformance electrostatic ultrafine particle technology will bridge the cost-performance gap for particulatemeasurement applications just as the printed amperometric sensor has done for gaseous monitoring.