Statera Environmental, Inc. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: NIEHS

Description

PROJECT SUMMARY Environmental exposure to chemicals has been linked to serious human health problemscontributing to as many asmillion deaths andof all disease burden globally each yearand high economic costs$billion in US and $billion in EUMuch of this exposure comes from contaminated water and in the US alonethere arepublic drinking water systems andmunicipal wastewater systems that discharge to surface watereach of these is required by regulators to monitor for chemicalsAt the same timewe know that nearly all human health risks from organic chemicals in drinking water are due to low concentrationlong term chronic exposure and not short term acute poisoningsThis poses a technical challenge to detect trace levels of chemicalse glow ng Land provide a long term average exposure when temporal variability often can beorders of magnitude from one sampling event to anothere gmonthly grab samplingThe founders of Statera have invented a novel concept of fabricating a mixed phase polymer PSDpatent pendingthe Composite Integrative Passive SamplerCIPSCIPS is composed of a continuous mesoporous sorptive phase embedded in a supporting microfiber membrane that sequesters both polar and nonpolar organic chemicals from waterCIPS is a new generation of PSD that will overcome key limitations of competing technology and revolutionize environmental monitoring for organic chemicals in waterwith potential for further applications in airsoiland sedimentThe overall aim of this Phase I proposal is to develop an initial CIPS prototype to accurately measure the TWA chronic exposure to overchemicals in watertargeted quantitative analysisassess the ability of CIPS to capture thousands of other organic chemicals in waternontargeted qualitative analysisand compare the performance of CIPS to existing technology Narrative Environmental exposure to chemicals has been linked to serious human health problemsand understanding and managing the risks of these chemicals require accurate measurements of chemical exposureThis project is to develop a disruptive technology and new generation of monitoring for organic chemicals in water providing a major advance in answering the questionIs my water safe to drink