A research team led by Fairfield-based General Electric Co. has won a $6.3 million defense contract to mimic the chemical-sensing properties of butterflies to devise nanosensors capable of sniffing out explosives and chemical agents, but whose commercial applications could some day identify air pollutants, tainted food, even human disease.
Scientists at GE Global Research, GE’s technology development arm, in collaboration with Air Force Research Laboratory, State University at Albany, and Britain’s University of Exeter, are collaborating on the four-year contract, GE said Thursday.
GE says the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is asking for new bio-inspired nanostructured sensors that would enable faster, more selective detection of dangerous warfare agents and explosives.
Three years ago, GE says its scientists discovered that nanostructures from wing scales of butterflies exhibited acute chemical sensing properties. Since then, they have been pursuing a dynamic, new sensing platform that replicates these unique properties, work that drew DARPA’s interest, the industrial giant said.
GE principal scientist Radislav Potyrailo says GE’s sensors can be made in very small sizes, with low production costs.
This would allow, Potyrailo says, large volumes of these sensors to be readily produced and deployed commercially wherever needed for such things as: emissions monitoring at power plants; food and beverage safety monitoring; water purification testing for home, environmental and industrial applications; breath analysis for disease detection; and wound healing assessment.
