SBIR Phase I: Low cost, portable mass spectrometers based on a chip-scale ion trap mass analyzer

SBIR 第一阶段：基于芯片级离子阱质量分析仪的低成本便携式质谱仪

• 批准号: 2213033
• 负责人: Wade Rellergert
• 金额: $ 25.6万
• 依托单位: IONICSCALE LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-15 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2213033&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Low; cost; portable

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to greatly expand the power of mass spectrometry for chemical detection and analysis to a far broader user base. The ultimate goal is to produce a chip-scale device sufficiently affordable that it can be a user replaceable component in an ultra-compact instrument. This is enabled by a microfabricatable ion trap geometry that circumvents key shortcomings of previous chip-scale mass analyzer efforts. There is potential to bring this technology to the consumer market where it can inform household residents of harmful trace or odorless chemicals present in their homes. In addition, with advances in data science, the proposed technology might also be able to inform household residents of volatile organic compound signatures that may be indicative of the early onset of disease in a manner similar to dogs which have a demonstrated ability to smell certain types of cancer, Parkinson’s disease, spiking or dropping blood sugar levels in diabetics, and, most topically, CoVID-19, among other conditions. Prior to entry into the consumer market, these compact instruments can be leveraged for important in-situ analytics in fields such as defense, energy production, pharmaceutical research, environmental monitoring, and space exploration. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will enable the assessment of a novel, patent-pending ion trap mass analyzer in a compact physics package for handheld mass spectrometers. Mass spectrometers are the gold standard for chemical analysis and have wide ranging applications, however, widespread utilization of these powerful instruments is hindered by their high cost, size, weight, and power. Current portable instruments are ~$100k USD, roughly the size of a small suitcase, and operate for only a few hours on a single battery charge. The novel ion trap mass analyzer geometry explored as part of this work can be microfabricated, potentially lowering the cost per unit to the point where it can be incorporated in an instrument physics package that is a replaceable cartridge, thus eliminating the need for expert maintenance. Coupled with modern computational methods, processing power, and cloud computing architectures, these mass spectrometers could be utilized for chemical analysis applications for which mass spectrometry is currently not a cost-effective solution. This dream of ubiquitous, high specificity chemical analysis technology could generate massive amounts of new raw data informing and creating future collective research and advanced applications/solutions.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.

该小型企业创新研究 (SBIR) 第一阶段项目的更广泛影响是将质谱用于化学检测和分析的能力扩展到更广泛的用户群，最终目标是生产一种价格足够便宜的芯片级设备。它可以是超紧凑仪器中的用户可更换组件，这是通过可微加工的离子阱几何形状实现的，该几何形状克服了以前芯片级质量分析器工作的主要缺点，有潜力将该技术引入消费市场。通知家人此外，随着数据科学的进步，拟议的技术还可以向家庭居民通报可能以某种方式指示疾病早期发作的挥发性有机化合物特征。与狗类似，狗被证明能够嗅出某些类型的癌症、帕金森病、糖尿病患者的血糖水平升高或下降，以及最常见的 CoVID-19 等疾病，在进入消费市场之前，这些紧凑型产品。仪器可以是该小型企业创新研究 (SBIR) 第一阶段项目将用于评估一种新颖的、正在申请专利的离子阱质量。手持式质谱仪的紧凑型物理封装中的分析仪是化学分析的黄金标准，具有广泛的应用，但是，这些功能强大的仪器的广泛使用因其高成本、尺寸、重量和功率而受到阻碍。仪器是大约 10 万美元，大约是一个小手提箱的大小，一次电池充电只能运行几个小时，作为这项工作的一部分探索的新型离子阱质量分析器几何形状可以进行微加工，从而有可能将单位成本降低到它可以集成到可更换盒的仪器物理包中，从而无需专家维护，再加上现代计算方法、处理能力和云计算架构，这些质谱仪可用于化学分析应用。目前，质谱分析并不是一个经济有效的解决方案。这种无处不在的高特异性化学分析技术的梦想可以产生大量新的原始数据，为未来的集体研究和先进的应用/解决方案提供信息和创造。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命和目标。通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，该项目被认为值得支持。