Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** under this sbir phase 2 effort,…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** under this sbir phase 2 effort, ondavia proposes to develop, prototype, validate, and commercialize an in-line, automated, semi-continuous instrument to monitor and measure the nitrogen cycle in water using surface-enhanced raman spectroscopy (sers). This instrument reads from consumable cassettes containing ondavia's proposed sers detection reagents. Specifically, ondavia will assemble and test a prototype analyzer for automated, quantitative analysis of ammonia and hydroxylamine in water. This innovative detection approach couples surface-enhanced raman isotope-edited spectroscopy with colorimetric reactions to perform trace-level, quantitative nitrogen analysis in complex wastewater samples. The resulting approach avoids the stochastic effects seen in other sers research, while overcoming limitations of colorimetry in complex field samples. This system will provide wastewater treatment operators and engineers with the data needed to optimize system performance. Optimization of system performance will reduce greenhouse gas emissions while improving energy efficiency.