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Personal Use Colorimetric Fumigant Sensors

Technology Benefits

Colorimetric Wearable Paper-based Cheap Rapid and Sensitive Detection at levels below PEL

Technology Application

Fumigant and gaseous toxic chemical detector

Detailed Technology Description

Detection of fumigants, or dilute toxic chemicals widely used in agriculture and soil, have high vapor pressures, allowing them to easily escape from the soil to the atmosphere, posing a concern to health. Current detection methods include the use of detector tubes which are effective but deteriorate with wage, are temperature and light sensitive, and cross-sensitive to gases other than those for which they are designed. Other methods include infra-red analyzers which, although sensitive and robust, are very expensive. There is a need for a sensor that is cheap, rapid, sensitive, and easy to use. Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed highly sensitive, wearable and disposable colorimetric sensors for rapid detection of fumigants below their corresponding permissible exposure levels (PEL) in air. This new approach uses glutathione based reactions to detect several fumigants simultaneously, making it more efficient than previous methods. This same reaction also provides the capability to fabricate sensors selective to different fumigants. The sensors have already been used and were successfully able to detect methyl isocyanate (MITC), chloropicrin, 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D), sulfuryl fluoride, and methyl Iodide (MeI) at levels lower than the PEL of each chemical respectively.

Others

Additional Technologies by these Inventors

• Environmentally Friendly Manufacturing of Nano, Micro and Sub-micro Fibers with Hybrid CAB System
• Pesticide Detection: Methyl Iodide and Methyl Bromide
• Photo-Rechargeable Antibacterial/Antiviral Materials

Tech ID/UC Case

27575/2017-736-0

Related Cases

2017-736-0

*Abstract

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed paper based sensors that rapidly detect low concentration of fumigants in the air.

*Principal Investigator

Name: Gang Sun

Department:

Name: Peixin Tang

Department:

Country/Region

USA