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Description

The Hyperadsorptive Atmospheric Sampling Technology (HAST) program will develop systems that permit exhaustive, accurate, and economical collection of atmospheric trace constituents to support chemical mapping of urban and military environments. The system, which integrates three technical components, will demonstrate materials, packaging, and extraction technologies that sample atmospheric impurities whose concentration ranges from 10 parts per trillion to 100 parts per million by volume from 100 liter-atmospheres of gas in less than five minutes. In the second phase, a complete system that weighs less than one kilogram including power, indexing for one hundred samples, and GPS geolocation will be demonstrated.

DARPA seeks innovative proposals in the following Areas of Interest:

Technical Area One: Hyperadsorptive materials
A central objective of the program is the quantitative, efficient and exhaustive collection of trace gases from the atmosphere. Media such as nanophase powders, aerogels, dendrimers, aerosils, zeolites, and porous solids may bind species whose atmospheric concentration is as low as ten parts per trillion or as high as one percent while failing to bind the primary constituents whose concentration exceeds one percent. Quantitative collection means that the atmospheric concentration of a gas can be inferred from the amount of material that is collected by hyperadsorbent media and subsequently analyzed in a laboratory. Efficient materials will accomplish this sampling using minimal masses and volumes of adsorbent and atmospheric gas, and will reject binding of the primary atmospheric constituents nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor. Exhaustive collection implies that diverse atmospheric traces including organic, acid, halogen, noble, and organometallic vapors will be collected.

Technical Area Two: Packaging
Systems that automatically sample atmospheric species for subsequent analysis must be packaged so that media are kept free of contamination except when they are deliberately exposed to sample the atmosphere. Packaging must also ensure that media remain fresh before exposure to air and stable subsequent to sample collection without cross-contamination.

Technical Area Three: Analyte Extraction
New approaches to sample extraction from adsorbent media are sought to mitigate the impacts of chemical reaction during extraction that are inherent to the existing technologies based on thermal desorption or organic solvent extraction.

Point of Contact

Peter Haaland, Program Manager, STO,
Phone 703-248-1517, Fax 703-807-4971,
Email BAA07-64@darpa.mil