Air to liquid micro-fluidic chamber

Abstract

A system, apparatus, and method include a pump to deliver vapor including airborne contaminants including organic compounds including a target analyte; a collector to transfer the airborne contaminants by autonomous liquid extraction into a mobile organic liquid phase; a micro-fluidic chamber including immobilized biorecognition elements that bind to analytes delivered from the mobile organic liquid phase; a mechanism to introduce the mobile organic liquid phase to a buffer containing a plurality of substrates causing a series of biochemical reactions that create a change corresponding to a concentration of the target analyte; and a detector to perform real-time analysis that correlates to a concentration of the organic compounds to determine a presence of the target analyte.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 converting acetylcholine to acetate and choline;   oxidizing the choline to derive betaine aldehyde and hydrogen peroxide;   oxidizing the hydrogen peroxide to generate a hydrogen ion and electron; and   generating a fluorophore from the hydrogen ion and electron.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , comprising introducing an enzyme comprising any of acetylcholine esterase, cyclooxygenase, and horseradish peroxidase to the acetylcholine to convert the acetylcholine to acetate and choline. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , comprising immobilizing the enzyme. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , comprising oxidizing the hydrogen peroxide by a peroxidase. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , comprising exciting the fluorophore to fluorescence. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , comprising correlating the fluorescence to an inverse correlation of a concentration of organo-phosphates. 
     
     
         7 . A method for detection of an organo-phosphate, the method comprising:
 receiving a vapor;   transferring the vapor to an organic liquid phase by autonomous liquid extraction;   exposing the organic liquid phase to an enzyme and a reagent, the enzyme configured to react with the reagent to yield a hydrogen ion and an electron, the enzyme comprising acetylcholine esterase, cyclooxytenase, horseradish peroxidase, or combinations thereof;   transferring the exposed organic liquid phase to a substrate configured to chemically react with the hydrogen ion and the electron to yield a fluorophore; and   detecting fluorescence of the fluorophore when the organo-phosphate is not present in the vapor or detecting a reduced fluorescence when the organo-phosphate is present in the vapor,   wherein the organo-phosphate inhibits the enzyme thereby reducing a yield of the fluorophore and decreases the fluorescence.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein receiving the vapor includes a gas-to-liquid collector. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the gas-to-liquid collector comprises a tube comprising silica gel coated with a xerogel. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the gas-to-liquid collector comprises a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising:
 triggering an alarm upon detection of fluorescence.