Missoula company gets $2.5M grant for sensors to study ocean
(From The Missoulian - February 10, 2012 - original story here)
Already bobbing in waters around the globe, the high-tech sensors developed by a Missoula company have now been commissioned to be part of a long-term study on the changing chemical makeup of the world's oceans.
Mike DeGrandpre's groundbreaking advances in analytical chemistry at the University of Montana have landed his company - Sunburst Sensors - a $2.5 million National Science Foundation contract announced Friday.
During the next three years, more than 100 of Sunburst's Submersible Autonomous Moored Instruments, or SAMIs, will be sent into the oceans as part of the 30-year Ocean Observatories Initiative.
The instruments were developed to test and collect in-depth data on pH and carbon dioxide levels in water.
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Sunburst Sensors Awarded NOAA Phase 2 SBIR Grant
Missoula, MT—September 10, 2013—Missoula-based Sunburst Sensors, LLC announced today that its application for funding to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program within the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been selected for a competitive award of nearly $400,000. This Phase II award follows a Phase I award of almost $100,000 received by Sunburst Sensors in 2012.
The company will use these Phase II funds to advance the development of a novel ocean drifter that can measure acidity (pH) and the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) levels of oceans and report these measurements to researchers via satellite telemetry. Sunburst Sensors expects to conclude its Phase II work with a commercial prototype of the ocean drifter. The finished product will complement the company's established line of related sensor technologies used by the global research community to closely monitor conditions in oceans around the world.
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