Miniature, Non-Invasive Sensor for Multi-Site Measurement of Tissue Microvascular Blood Flow

Not Available This Small Business Innovative Research Phase I Project develops and demonstrates an electrochemical sensor for detecting and quantifying the concentration level of water in aviation fuel. Sediment and water degrade the quality of aircraft fuel at concentration levels as low as 2 mg/l and 5 ppm, respectively. Frequent fuel sampling is presently used where samples are analyzed using on-board analytical equipment. It is desired to lower the cost of maintaining the high quality fuel by using an array of sensors located throughout the fuel delivery system. An electrochemical sensor is proposed by Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) to detect and quantify the concentration of water in the fuel. Additionally, the sensor will also assess the level of sediment in the fuel. The PSI sensor approach is based upon using a multi-array of micro-electrochemical sensors where each sensor in the array has a unique electrochemical response to the fuel stream. A pattern recognition methodology such as principal component analysis is used to identify an empirical relationship between the sensor array response and the fuel stream composition.