SBIR Phase II: Large-Scale Synthesis of Hollow Metal Nanospheres: Conversion of Batch Synthesis to Continuous Flow

SBIR第二阶段：空心金属纳米球的大规模合成：间歇合成向连续流动的转化

• 批准号: 2127133
• 负责人: Sarah Lindley
• 金额: $ 99.15万
• 依托单位: CORELESS TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2127133&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Large; Scale

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is based upon establishing a consistent, reliable source of high-quality hollow metal nanoparticles, thus enabling their commercial adoption in applications where they markedly outperform their conventional counterparts. One such application is point-of-use testing: by switching to hollow metal nanoparticles, lateral flow assays will reach higher levels of sensitivity and lower limits of detection, improving field testing for environmental contamination; detection of toxins and pathogens in agriculture; and early disease identification in clinical and veterinary care. Integration into rapid antibody and antigen tests for highly contagious diseases such as COVID-19 should prove particularly impactful, as the resulting higher sensitivity would reduce the occurrence of false negative results, thereby improving the performance (and public perception) of rapid testing. Critically, it would also improve baseline testing availability for rural and under-served populations who do not have access to PCR-equipped clinical laboratories. They can be applied to many other industries as well. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will advance the state of the art of continuous flow synthesis of plasmonic nanomaterials. Nanoparticle synthesis is a highly sensitive process, and obtaining high quality samples of advanced architectures has previously required labor-intensive, small-batch processes incompatible with large-scale production. Simply scaling traditional batch techniques has led to product with poor quality and prohibitive costs. This project advances a prototype reactor that has demonstrated high-throughput production of hollow plasmonic nanoparticles with control over size and color, while maintaining structural uniformity (15% CV). Importantly, it reduced the cost of labor per liter of product by 950% from that of small batch synthesis. The proposed project will increase fidelity, further scale production volume, post-process and stabilize the final product, and benchmark its optical performance. The resulting production-scale reactor will have the capacity necessary to supply LFA manufacturers with ready-to-use, advanced color labels. It will enable new research and new nano-enabled devices by creating a consistent commercial supply of high performance plasmonic nanostructures with well-controlled physical properties. The manufacture of hollow metal nanoparticles for point-of-use testing applications will also pave the way for their expansion into other industries that would also benefit from their advantageous optical and photothermal plasmonic properties, such as photocatalysis, water purification, and phototherapeutics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）II期项目的更广泛影响是基于建立一致，可靠的高质量空心金属纳米颗粒的来源，从而使其在其应用中明显超过其传统对应物的应用中实现了商业采用。这样的应用之一就是使用点测试：通过切换到空心金属纳米颗粒，横向流量测定将达到更高的灵敏度和检测下限，从而改善了环境污染的现场测试；在农业中检测毒素和病原体；以及临床和兽医护理中的早期疾病鉴定。将高度传染性疾病（例如Covid-19）的快速抗体和抗原测试整合起来，应特别有影响力，因为较高的敏感性将减少假阴性结果的发生，从而改善对快速测试的性能（和公众感知）。至关重要的是，这也将改善无法获得配备PCR临床实验室的农村和服务不足人群的基线测试可用性。它们也可以应用于许多其他行业。这个小型企业创新研究阶段项目将推进等离子纳米材料连续流综合的艺术状态。纳米颗粒合成是一个高度敏感的过程，并且获得高质量的先进体系结构的高质量样品以前需要劳动密集型的小批量工艺与大规模生产不相容。简单地缩放传统批量技术就导致了产品的质量差和成本较差。该项目推进了一个原型反应器，该反应堆表现出具有控制尺寸和颜色的空心等离子体纳米颗粒的高通量产生，同时保持结构均匀性（15％CV）。重要的是，它使每升产品的劳动成本降低了950％，而小批次合成的成本则降低了。拟议的项目将增加忠诚度，进一步的规模生产量，后加工和稳定最终产品，并基准其光学性能。由此产生的生产规模反应堆将具有为LFA制造商提供现成的高级颜色标签所需的能力。它将通过创建具有良好控制的物理特性的高性能等离子体纳米结构的一致商业供应来实现新的研究和新的支持纳米功能的设备。 用于使用点测试应用的空心金属纳米颗粒的制造也将为它们扩展到其他行业铺平道路，这些行业也将受益于其优势的光学和光热等离子体特性，例如光催化，水纯化和光疗法，这些奖项通过NSF的法规及其依据的依据，这是NSF的范围的依据，并具有良好的影响。 标准。