Air Force Funds Water Purification Tech

The Air Force Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer Program Office is Providing $750,000 to Mature a Portable Micro-discharge Ozone Generator, Capable of Purifying and Decontaminating Water for Warfighters in the Air Force's Air Combat Command and the Army's Special Forces Command

Access to clean, uncontaminated water is of paramount importance to Air Force warfighters conducting critical operations. Unfortunately, in many remote or rural areas of the world, access to this resource is limited or non-existent.

The Air Force Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program office is providing nearly $750,000 to further mature a portable micro-discharge ozone generator, capable of purifying and decontaminating water for warfighters in the Air Force's Air Combat Command and the Army's Special Forces Command.

The new generator, developed jointly by Physical Sciences Inc., in Andover, Mass. and Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, is expected to offer maintenance and system voltage improvements over conventional ozone generators.

"Maturation of this technology is expected to result in portable water purification systems for remote air fields, as well as portable biological and chemical agent decontamination devices," said Dr. Steve Adams, the Air Force Research Laboratory researcher managing the project.

In addition to reactive ozone, the technology can be altered to generate an energetic glowing argon gas, which will be used in an associated rare-gas microplasma laser development. The effort will concentrate on scaling the power up to demonstrate the potential for meeting weapons-grade laser power objectives.

"The beauty of the micro-discharge technology is that it has the ability to create this chemically reactive or glowing gas from a supply of inert gas flowing though the discharge region the size of a dime," Adams said. "The micro-discharge also operates at a nice low gas temperature because the tiny electrons possess most of the energy in the discharge while the larger gas molecules remain cool. It is similar to how a fluorescent light bulb glows bright, but stays cool due to a gas discharge inside of the bulb."

Both the water purification and laser efforts focus on replacing hazardous chemical supplies with safe gases such as oxygen and argon flowing through a micro-discharge. The ability to replace those chemicals will greatly reduce field operational maintenance requirements and the logistics associated with those systems," Adams said.

In addition to the STTR funding, this program leverages more than $300,000 in funds from the High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office. As the technology matures, the investigators plan to seek additional funds from other Department of Defense agencies for scaling devices to field applications. These funds will help ensure the Phase II project graduates into a Phase III program that successfully transitions its technologies into military or private sectors.

The Air Force SBIR and STTR programs are mission-oriented programs that integrate the needs and requirements of the Air Force through research and development topics that have military and commercial potential. The SBIR program was established by Congress in 1982 to fund research and development (R&D) through small businesses of 500 or fewer employees. The STTR program was established in 1992 to fund cooperative R&D projects with small businesses and non-profit U.S. research institutions, such as universities.

Source: fairborndailyherald.com

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• Purification
• Filtration
• Technology