WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE
88th Air Base Wing Office of Public Affairs
Air Force Materiel Command
937-522-3252
01-23-15
23 January 2015
www.wpafb.af.mil
NEWS RELEASE
Air Force funds research for water purification and laser
technologies
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio – Access to clean, uncontaminated water is of paramount
importance to Air Force warfighters conducting critical operations. Unfortunately, in many remote or rural
areas of the world, access to this resource is limited or non-existent.
The Air Force Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program
office is providing nearly $750,000 to further mature a portable micro-discharge ozone generator, capable of
purifying and decontaminating water for warfighters in the Air Force’s Air Combat Command and the Army’s
Special Forces Command. The new generator, developed jointly by Physical Sciences Inc., in Andover,
Massachusetts and Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, is expected to offer maintenance and system
voltage improvements over conventional ozone generators.
“Maturation of this technology is expected to result in portable water purification systems for remote air
fields, as well as portable biological and chemical agent decontamination devices,” said Dr. Steve Adams, the
Air Force Research Laboratory researcher managing the project.
Additionally, the technology will be used in an associated rare-gas microplasma laser effort, which will
concentrate on scaling the power up to demonstrate the potential for meeting weapons-grade power
objectives.
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“The beauty of the micro-discharge technology is that it also has the ability to create this chemically reactive or
electronically excited gas out of a supply of inert gas,” Adams said. “This occurs at a relatively low gas
temperature because the electrons possess most of the energy in the discharge and do all the work while the
gas remains cool. It is similar to how a fluorescent light bulb glows bright, but stays cool due to an argon and
mercury vapor discharge inside it.
“The laser effort focuses on replacing corrosive gas lasers with innovative inert gas lasers. The ability to
replace those lasers will greatly reduce laser operational maintenance requirements and the logistics
associated with those systems,” Adams said.
In addition to the STTR funding, this program leverages more than $300,000 in funds from the High Energy
Laser Joint Technology Office. As the technology matures, the investigators plan to seek additional funds from
other Department of Defense agencies for scaling devices to field applications. These funds will help ensure
the Phase II project graduates into a Phase III program that successfully transitions its technologies into
military or private sectors.
The Air Force SBIR and STTR programs are mission-oriented programs that integrate the needs and
requirements of the Air Force through research and development topics that have military and commercial
potential. The SBIR program was established by Congress in 1982 to fund research and development (R&D)
through small businesses of 500 or fewer employees. The STTR program was established in 1992 to fund
cooperative R&D projects with small businesses and non-profit U.S. research institutions, such as universities.
Since 2006, the Commercialization Readiness Program has directly linked Air Force centers to Air Force
Research Laboratory technical points of contact to identify and evaluate Air Force needs and innovative
solutions. Its primary objective is to accelerate the transition of SBIR/STTR-developed technologies into realworld military and commercial applications.
The Air Force SBIR and STTR programs provide more than $300 million in funding for research and
development activities by small businesses annually. With this budget, the Air Force funds research from the
early stages of concept development until it transitions to military or commercial use.
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For more information about these programs, please call the Air Force SBIR/STTR Program Office at 1-800-2220336, email [email protected], or visit our website at www.afsbirsttr.com.
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Kristin Galbally-Kinney, of Physical Sciences Inc., adjusts the excitation beam for an argon microplasma laser.
Kristin Galbally-Kinney, Steve Davis, and Terry Rawlins, of Physical Sciences Inc., adjust the excitation source
for an argon microplasma laser.
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Steve Davis, Kristin Galbally-Kinney, and Terry Rawlins, of Physical Sciences Inc., examine an infrared image
of an argon microplasma laser beam.
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