Company
Portfolio Data
Back to Company SearchIONICSCALE LLC
UEI: CVB1EH38G4W8
Number of Employees: 2
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
SBIR/STTR Involvement
Year of first award: 2022
4
Phase I Awards
0
Phase II Awards
N/A
Conversion Rate
$772,089
Phase I Dollars
$0
Phase II Dollars
$772,089
Total Awarded
Awards
CHIP-SCALE MASS ANALYZERS FOR LOW-COST UNDERWATER MASS SPECTROMETERS
Amount: $175,000 Topic: 9.3
IonicScale LLC is developing the world’s most compact, novel mass spectrometry-based chemical analyzers. These instruments will have wide ranging applications in environmental pollution monitoring, personalized medicine, food safety, biomanufacturing, forensics and law enforcement, defense, and space exploration. With an appropriate sampling system, these instruments can even be used underwater for several purposes including to detect leaks in offshore oil and gas structures; detect, locate and identify toxic industrial chemicals dumped in our oceans; and study various important aspects that impact the health of ocean ecosystems, such as dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) levels. To enable these important applications, this Phase I award will enable the design of the submersible enclosure and a novel membrane inlet sampling interface to enable ocean-based in-situ deployment of the IonicScale Gen I mass-analyzer system.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2024
DOC
NOAA
FeDORA - Fentanyl Detection with Optimized Recognition Algorithms
Amount: $166,089 Topic: DHS241-001
IonicScale LLC is developing a handheld chemical sensor based on ion trap mass spectrometry (MS). The chemical analyzer has proven sub-isotopic mass resolution for gas phase analysis. For this project, it is proposed to demonstrated basic feasibility to extend the device's capability to sampling of solids (e.g., pills, powders, or other swabbed materials). In addition, the proposed effort will implement machine-learning based models to accurately classify previously unseen synthetic narcotics (e.g., novel synthetics in the fentanyl family). The various models' performance levels will be explored and optimized within the context of real-world sensor signal characteristics, trained using publicly available MS fragmentation spectral libraries which are compatible with IonicScale's sensor technology. This Phase I project will be an important first step to developing a user-friendly, ultra-portable chemical detection technology that is capable of both detecting known (library) compounds and classifying novel analog compounds in one device with low rates of false alarm. These general capabilities will be a valuable tool in Safety and Security and Environmental monitoring applications.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2024
DHS
Development of Compact, Low-cost Mass Spectrometers for Autonomous, in Situ Monitoring of Water, Soil, and Air Quality
Amount: $175,000 Topic: 8.4
Mass spectrometers the gold standard for chemical analysis with wide ranging applications butare unfortunately limited in deployment by their high cost size weight and power. Currentportable instruments are ~$100k the size of a small suitcase and operate for only a few hours ona single charge. We have invented a patent-pending ion trap geometry with key benefits overexisting designs including the ability to be microfabricated. This innovation will enablecompact low-cost widely deployable mass spectrometry based chemical analyzers forautonomous in situ sensing and monitoring.This SBIR Phase I project will enable IonicScale to develop membrane inlet sampling systemsfor its ultra-compact mass spectrometers allowing their use as in situ sensors for air water andsoil environments. In this 8-month project we will build an experiment to test polymers ofinterest and determine the design geometries to yield a sampling flow rate compatible with theinstruments. We will identify and work with ARS researchers and future customers to developthe product specifications features and price points necessary to ensure our instruments cansolve our customers' most important problems.IonicScale is poised to introduce the first single-handed commercial mass spectrometer. Thefirst-generation device in development promises significant application in traditional markets(Safety & Security and Environmental) and provides a proof-of-concept for a second-generationchip-scale cartridge. This device will revolutionize its market by tremendously reducing the costbarrier to entry. This Phase I represents a critical development of the sampling sub-system totarget applications in varied environments.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2023
USDA
SBIR Phase I:Low cost, portable mass spectrometers based on a chip-scale ion trap mass analyzer
Amount: $256,000 Topic: QT
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.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2022
NSF