ICC client receives National Science Foundation grant
The Eastern Region Innovation and Commercialization Center (ICC) at Eastern Kentucky University has announced that one of its clients, Quansor Corporation, has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for $149,703.
The NSF awarded the SBIR Phase I award to the Richmond-based corporation for a real-time monitor to detect waterborne contaminants.
Quansor offers patented technology and multi-element sensing application processes which have potential worldwide to monitor and manage contaminants in water sources and other critical resources. Quansor has two related patents, a trade secret process and an on-going relationship with Professor David Atwood in the Chemistry Department at the University of Kentucky, who helped write the proposal.
This NSF Phase I award will leverage quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) technology and integrate an automatic microfiltration and continuous flow sample preparation to allow low-cost real-time monitoring and detection of arsenic in water sources. The award is for further development of mechanical and software systems as well as characterization and validation of the specific arsenic application. Wendell Wilson, an EKU grad and local technical entrepreneur, is leading EKU interns in the hardware and software development.
Atwood has developed new compounds and technologies for the removal of contaminant elements, such as arsenic and mercury from water.
“While my research group has been successful in creating filtration systems for the removal of contaminants from water, we have not had a sensor capable of telling us how much contaminant is in the water or when the filtration system has reached capacity,” Atwood said. “Quansor’s innovative QCM-based sensor will provide this critical aspect of water treatment. It will not only be essential for my own systems but all of the other water treatment technologies currently in use or being developed. Quansor’s NSF-sponsored breakthrough will have far-ranging impacts on the world’s ability to produce clean drinking water and industrial effluent.”
This grant award for a six-month study in 2010 should lead to follow-on Phase II funding for further testing and product development. A pending state matching grant is also under evaluation. Activities will involve field testing surface water monitors, a natural role for the Eastern Kentucky Environmental Research Institute at EKU.
“A big payoff for this technology will be to effect major efficiencies in water treatment, leading to far lower costs for providing verifiably healthy drinking water”, said John Merrill, Quansor president. “We look forward to demonstrating this capability in a Phase II project”.
The substantial cost savings will be realized by municipal, government, commercial and residential water users, with real-time water quality data displayed on the Internet. Future applications that will result from development on this funded project include chemical receptors for heavy metals, hydrocarbons, disinfection byproducts, fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, E. coli, and many other contaminants.
“This project addresses a solution to a global problem and meets a clearly growing market demand in today’s more environmentally conscious and terrorism sensitive world,” said R. Gary Marshall, executive director of the ICC. “As the presence of or acceptable levels of contaminant become more critical, better real-time solutions to identify and monitor contaminants is mandatory. The development and testing of the real-time monitor and validation of the process under this grant award is a major step in environmental management.”
The Eastern Region ICC, located in the EKU Business & Technology Center and managed by the EKU Center for Economic Development, Entrepreneurship and Technology (CEDET) is funded by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development’s Department of Commercialization & Innovation.
Contact Information
859-622-8577
Published on January 21, 2010