USEPA Awards R&P an SBIR Contract

Rupprecht & Patashnick (R&P) has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract by the USEPA for the construction and field testing of innovative particle measurement units. The new particle measurement concept is based upon the firm's TEOM technology, which directly measures the mass of particles collected on a filter.

The loss of semi-volatile particulate matter (PM) mass collected on filters and filter sampling artifacts can produce nonquantifiable biases in reference method measurements depending upon the thermodynamic history of the filter in a manual sampler. R&P has developed a new automated technique that has the potential to overcome the difficulties inherent in PM mass measurement and holds the promise of measuring the PM mass as it exists in ambient air at ambient temperature. The so-called Differential TEOM System has the potential to become a new reference standard for determining the particulate matter mass in ambient air.

The USEPA awarded R&P the first phase SBIR contract after a very competitive review process. The contract runs for six months, and has the potential for leading to a larger, second phase contract.

- May 02 -

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