N5 SENSORS INC SBIR Phase II Award, April 2023

The threat posed by chemical agents extends beyond Toxic Industrial Chemicals (TICs) and Chemical Warfare Agents (CWAs) and has evolved to include lower volatility materials referred to as Non-Traditional Agents (NTAs). Similarly, illegally distributed and manufactured opioids, known collectively as pharmaceutical-based agents (PBAs), pose significant risk to emergency response teams and law enforcement. Yet, current handheld instruments cannot detect these lower-volatility chemicals especially if disseminated in aerosol form. Thus, there is a need for technological innovations that enable these detection capabilities, supported by advanced data processing methods. N5 Sensors, Inc. (N5) proposes a Phase II effort to continue development of the ChemBadge “ Emergency Response (ChemBadgER), as a person-worn chemical aerosol detector capable of real-time detection of multiple classes of threat. The ChemBadgER is based on N5's proprietary Semiconductor Photocatalytic Hybrid (SPH) sensing technology that enables continuous monitoring and semi-quantification of environmental and hazardous vapors.The ChemBadgER expands this capability to detect both chemical threats in the vaporphase, and also those presented as liquid or solid aerosols. In Phase I, N5 studied the feasibility of the approach, developed supporting data for proof of concept, and demonstrated the ChemBadgER at the breadboard level. In Phase II, N5 will design, develop an integrated micro-scale aerosol collector (IMAC), and will integrate this with the SPH sensor array. The ChemBadgER development will follow a clear and logical progression from testing at the component level, subsystem level, and finally full prototypes, with testing on simulants prior to challenging with threat analytes.