Grantee Research Project Results

Final Report: Microelectrochemical Capillary System for Environmental Analytical Lab on a Chip

Description:

As part of its mission to protect human health and the environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is dedicated to developing and promoting innovative cleanup strategies that restore contaminated sites to productive use, reduce associated costs, and promote environmental stewardship. In adopting this strategy, however, there will be an increasing need to implement a more cost-effective, long-term monitoring strategy for all remediation sites, as well as for the surrounding areas, which have not been addressed adequately by the current state-of-the-art monitoring technologies. To address the problem, Lynntech is developing a new, automated field deployable laboratory with the ability to simultaneously analyze both organic pollutants and metal contaminants in environmental samples. The key component of the system is a new multichannel, micro capillary electrochemical-driven device that uses electrokinetic-induced, electro-osmotic flow for organic separation and identification. This unit is highly synergistic to many of the complementary processing and analytical microfluidic devices that have been developed by Lynntech for environmental monitoring. These include an electrochemical stripping voltammetric analysis, selective preconcentration and an optical detection system. The development of this instrument has been funded by EPA through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):

During the Phase I research period, Lynntech has met the goal of detection of 10 ppb levels of the metal contaminants (mercury, lead, cadmium and hexavalent chromium) in water samples, and is developing a novel inline pre-concentrator to enable detection of trace levels of organic contaminants, such as BTEX and halogenated solvents. Lynntech also has identified the parameters required to develop a field deployable system for detection of both metal and organic contaminants in water. A preliminary design of the integrated systems for the Phase II effort also has been completed.

Conclusions:

In the Phase I of the SBIR project, Lynntech has demonstrated the feasibility of a low-cost, “Green Remediation” compliant remote monitoring system with the ability to detect both metal and organic contaminants from a mixture in 10 ppb levels. The instrument will be able to be operated by personnel with very little training in analytical techniques (e.g., community members) in a low technology environment, and will have the ability to run for months or longer without human intervention.

SBIR Phase II: