Printed Self-Powered Miniature Air Sampling Sensors

• Main Author: Joseph Birmingham
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IFSA Publishing, S.L. 2017-07-01
• Series: Sensors & Transducers
• Subjects: Air sampling; Self-powered; Nanotechnology; Ion-drag pump; Nanoscale; Microstructured array
• Online Access: http://www.sensorsportal.com/HTML/DIGEST/july_2017/Vol_214/P_2933.pdf

The recent geo-political climate has increased the necessity for autonomous, chip-sized, lightweight, air sampling systems which can quickly detect and characterize chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high explosive (CBRNE) hazardous materials and relay the results. To address these issues, we have developed a self-powered 3-D chip architecture that processes air to produce concentrated size- sorted particle (and vapor) samples that could be integrated with on-chip nanoelectronic detectors for the discovery of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The unique air movement approach is composed of a nanoscale energy harvester that provides electricity to a printed ion-drag pump to push air through coated-microstructured arrays. The self-powered microstructured array air sampler was designed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling to collect particles from 1-10 microns at greater than 99.9999 % efficiency with less than 100 Pascal [Pa] pressure drop at a specified air flow rate. Surprisingly, even at minimum air flow rates below specifications, these CFD predictions were matched by experimental results gathered in a Government aerosol chamber. The microstructured array engineered filter equaled the collection capability of a membrane or a high efficiency particle air (HEPA) filter at a fraction of the filter pressure drop.