MARS · Versatile mass and rheological sensing platform
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-09-01 → 2022-08-31
- EU contribution
- €171,473
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
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Results in brief
Versatile mass and rheological sensing platform
The sensors and smart-sensors global markets are evaluated at > 200 Billion USD (2025) and 58 Billion USD (2022), respectively, and expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18.1%. These growths are fomented by end-markets in the Industrial, Automotive, Consumer and Medical Sectors, and mostly driven by new paradigms such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), Autonomous Cars, Smart Cities/Homes, Internet of Things (IoT) and Diagnostics. MEMS-based sensors have been widely utilized in electronics, automotive and aerospace systems, biophysics, environmental monitoring and medical diagnosis sectors. These sensors are often based on the interaction between a micrometric mechanical device and its surrounding medium, where the mechanical device responds to changes in some environmental property, such as, for example, temperature, pressure, flow, density, viscosity, or the presence of some analytes of interest. The current trend to miniaturize is driven by the need of minimizing the footprint and power-consumption of these devices, but also by the need of probing smaller space and time scales, allowing measurements of physical phenomena in real-time at the micro- and nano-scale. Fluids play a key role for many of the sensing applications, being either the substance to be tested (e.g. blood or saliva) or the support environment used to keep the substance of interest in its physiological state (e. g. proteins, DNA or analytes in solution). Therefore, measuring the mass of analytes with extremely high – potentially single molecule – accuracy, or understanding the rheology of simple and complex fluids play a critical role in a wide variety of applications, from the food and process industry, to environmental monitoring, to healthcare, to microfluidics. Several of these problems do not currently have an adequate solution, as many of the current sensing technologies only allow for bulk measurements of fluid properties, have poor limits of detection and limited accuracy/reliability when using extremely small samples. The MARS project aimed at developing a proof-of-concept platform with new capabilities for sensing mass and rheological properties of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids with unprecedented sensitivity and reliability.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The MARS project will develop a platform for measuring mass at microscale and rheological properties of Newtonian/ non-Newtonian fluids in real-time, with unprecedented resolution, accuracy and reliability. This will be achieved by exploiting some unique degrees of flexibility in the dynamical response of a self-excited micromechanical probe. Depending on the desired application, this platform can be either used as a continuous sensor, a threshold sensor or a stable reference. Measuring the mass of analytes with high accuracy and understanding the rheology of simple and complex fluids play a critical role in a wide variety of applications in the ever-growing smart sensor global market.The success of the MARS project requires:- Advanced modelling of the dynamical response of self-excited microresonators oscillating in Newtonian or non-Newtonian fluids while subject to mass changes;- Design, development and optimisation of the new sensing platform;- Real case experiments for mass sensing, to assess and showcase the capabilities of each sensing modality;- Characterisation of the properties of weakly non-Newtonian viscoelastic fluids.This platform addresses several of the main drawbacks of current techniques to measure mass or to characterise viscoelastic fluids and presents some unique features: i) Self-sustained oscillations that keep track of any environmental changes affecting the mechanical probe, without requiring any external equipment; ii) Possibility of controlling a variety of sensing modalities by introducing delay in the feedback loop with a phase-shifter circuit; iii) Capability of sensing extremely small mass (potentially single molecules) and weakly non-Newtonian fluids.The end technical result will be a proof-of-concept prototype to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technology, and its potential to engage with external partners for further development in the direction of a viable and revolutionary commercial product.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE · RomaCoordinatorItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union