NOVA SCIENTIFIC INCORPORATED — Department of Energy SBIR Phase II: The project is developing a new sensor technology that can measure carbon dioxide levels w

Description

The project is developing a new sensor technology that can measure carbon dioxide levels with precision that matches or exceeds the state-of-the-art performance, but will reduce the price dramatically, and will for the first time enable instruments deployed in remote locations to operate unattended for long periods of time. A laboratory prototype was designed, constructed, and demonstrated. It exceeded the performance objectives for Phase 1 by a wide margin and clearly proved the feasibility of the proposed approach. In the first year, engineering prototypes will be constructed to address remaining design questions and verify robustness for unattended operation; the capability to measure water vapor concentration in air will also be added so the instrument can report the dry mole fraction of carbon dioxide in air (the amount of carbon dioxide per amount of dry air). In the second year, manufacturing prototypes will be constructed to validate manufacturing approaches suitable for high-volume, low-cost production and to enable testing under extreme environmental conditions. Commercial Applications and OtherBenefits: Government and university scientists will deploy the proposed analyzers in distributed networks to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at local, regional, and global scales. These instruments will benefit the public by collecting the information needed to formulate policies that efficiently mitigate the impacts of climate change while minimizing the cost to society.