Award Data

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking a ground-level air-quality monitoring device to measure wildland fire pollutants including carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulates, in a small, easy-to-use unit capable of data storage and data viewing. As more frequent wildfires are expected to occur near populated areas, air-quality monitoring will be more persisten ...

An estimated 75% of litter along the shoreline globally is made of plastic. Plastic particles and debris find their way into oceans, rivers, lakes, sediment, and eventually into our bodies. Over 90% of the plastic contamination in the open ocean is attributed to microplastic particles (MP) - i.e. plastic objects with diameter

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Water (OW) is seeking innovative technologies to improve the performance and reliability of small drinking water systems. In response, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a novel Regenerative Capacitive Electro-Desalination System (RECED) to enable the use of reduced-quality water sources, such as weakly saline brackish wat ...

This proposal addresses the need for continuous microbial monitoring in water reuse treatment systems. The proposal will lead to a near-real-time, in-situ, reagentless sensor for potable and non-potable water systems. LITMUS (Laser-based Insitu Testing of Microbes with Ultraviolet Spectroscopy) uses deep UV laser excitation to directly detect microbes from the autofluorescence of protein-bound aro ...

The growing scarcity of potable water is increasing pressure on public health, the environment, and the economy, intensifying the clear and present need to advance water recycling and reclamation technologies. To that end, the EPA and has announced the National Water Reuse Action Plan (WRAP). Annual spending on water reuse is $1.8 billion, expected to increase by ~30% by 2027. As the water reuse m ...

Trace organic compounds are a major challenge for water reuse. N-nitrosamines and NDMA in particular are of concern because they occur in treated wastewaters at levels closest to those of potential human health concern. These are formed as a disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in treatment processes used in water recycling. NDMA limits and monitoring requirements are included in most permitting require ...

This proposal addresses the need for a pre-treatment technology to remove per- and poly- fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from industrial wastewaters. Phase I involves the design, build and testing of a novel technology to remove PFAS from water, termed the Aqueous Electrostatic Concentrator (AEC). This technology will be tested as an electrical bench-scale device that concentrates PFAS through selec ...

In this Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) effort, Nikira Labs Inc. proposes to utilize open-path, mid-infrared cavity enhanced absorption spectrometry to develop a sensitive (< 10 ppt), fast (< 100 seconds), and highly-selective ethylene oxide (EtO) analyzer suitable for field-deployment. The US EPA has concluded that EtO, which is widely used in ethylene glycol production and medical ster ...

As forest fires are increasing in prevalence and intensity there is a need for miniaturized, lower cost, and easily portable air sensors that provide information to first responders, public health managers and communities so informed, timely decisions can be made. PM2.5 is an accepted standard for particulate matter (PM) measurements, but PM2.5 mass measurements cannot identify sources without ana ...