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Beach Company Develops Low-Cost Chemical Detection Device

Posted on: Monday, 31 October 2005, 18:00 CST

By Allison Connolly, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Oct. 31--VIRGINIA BEACH -- Dressed in bright green protective suits, members of the Virginia Beach Fire Department's hazardous materials team cautiously approached the railcar spewing white smoke near Burton Station Road.

Strapped to their forearms was an armband called the Chameleon that can tell them what kind of gas they are being exposed to by changing color.

In this drill last week, the firefighters knew the fake gas was supposed to be anhydrous ammonia. But had they not known, the armbands would have alerted them within minutes. Typically, they would have to consult books and other devices to determine what it was.

"It's organized chaos out there," said Fire Capt. David W. Hutcheson, a company officer on the department's hazmat team. "Inevitably, you forget something. Incorporating it into one unit is better for us."

The rugged, 2-ounce armband sensors have been used by crews cleaning up New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and by Marines looking for toxic chemicals in Iraq. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has used them to detect the presence of ammonia, an ingredient in the drug methamphetamine. And soon, they may be attached to unmanned aerial vehicles to detect the use of biochemical warfare on a battlefield.

The Chameleon is made by Virginia Beach-based Morphix Technologies. The company, like its name, has evolved since it was started by three chemists and two others 10 years ago as K&M Environmental.

It made and sold chemical detection badges, mostly to local labs. But that changed with a Small Business Innovation Research grant in 2002 to develop a low-cost, disposable chemical detection product for the Marines. The result was the Chameleon.

"This product took us to a whole new market," said Kimberly B. Chapman, a founder and the company's vice president of sales and marketing.

Marketing to the military is not easy, and this is one example of a small business pitching a product that the customer wanted, said Sarah Brown, a contractor at Fort Monroe who advises the Army on transformation initiatives.

"The military is always looking for a solution that's simple and works effectively in the field," said Brown, who works for BAE Systems Inc.

What sets Morphix apart, she said, is that the company is willing to go back to the drawing board in order to fit the product to the military's needs.

Chapman said Morphix gets ideas for other products based on such customer requests. Now the rapidly growing company is exploring new areas of chemical and biological detection.

A month ago, Morphix received a $1.5 million contract from the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop a chemical coating for protective clothing that will make it last longer.

In January, the company won a $2 million contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to develop a wireless communications device that detects chemical and biological warfare.

Morphix also is working with Navmar Applied Sciences Corp. in Chester, Pa., to mount the Chameleon on Navmar's unmanned aerial vehicles and sell them to the government.

Today, Morphix has six chemists with doctoral degrees on its research and development team. The staff of 38 is double what it was two years ago. Executives expect revenue to double over the next year based on the contracts it has, but they declined to disclose that revenue or its earnings.

In anticipation of that growth, the founders hired executives who know how to market their product to a wider audience. Edward P. Locke, director of research and development, hails from NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, where he worked on a team that developed materials for space and military craft. Chief executive officer J. Bart Heenan previously oversaw a $100 million small business unit at General Electric.

Morphix is a rarity in Hampton Roads, the kind of small tech firm that the region needs, especially because it manufactures its product here, said Richard Lally, president of the Hampton Roads Technology Council. Lally is president of Virginia Beach-based Oceana Sensor Technologies Inc., which has partnered with Morphix in the past.

"That type of company will be around here for a long time, contributing to the community by offering good wages and paying taxes," Lally said.

Chapman said there's potential for other products based on the Chameleon design.

Each of the 10 disposable tabs on the Chameleon contains a different chemical sensor that works like litmus paper. When the tab comes into contact with the gas -- even one part-per-billion of it -- it changes color.

Chapman thought of the name while in a Virginia Beach pet store. A clerk put the reptile in her hand and it turned blue.

"He said that means it's scared to death," she said.

But while most people think chameleons change color to match their environment, Chapman said they are responding to a threat -- just like the armbands do.

The Virginia Beach Fire Department advised the company on the armband's design, as have locally-based Marines and Navy SEALs. The company makes the color tabs and assembles the product at its Production Road headquarters, while the black Velcro band is made by another Virginia Beach company, Vel-Tye LLC.

Virginia Beach Fire Capt. Michael Barakey said the Chameleon's appeal is that it's easy to use, waterproof, disposable and cheap -- the armband device costs $30 and the disposable sensors are $3 each. Typically machines or sensors with these capabilities cost tens of thousands of dollars, he said.

"In the hazmat arena, the technology is cost prohibitive for municipalities," he said.

Because the product is resistant to water, temperature, sand, pressure and light, executives say there's no limit to where it can be used, even space.

"It's a matter of taking the technology that's there and using it in different ways," Locke said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

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Source: The Virginian-Pilot

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