Ionfinity, a security technology subsidiary of the alternate energy company Viaspace, said it will receive an additional funding of $786,000 from the U.S. Navy for a contract awarded earlier to develop the sensor.

Chemical sensors can have both defense and civilian use but Ionfinity's sniffer has caught the attention of the military that sees defense potential of the device. Ionfinity said it was informed by officials the Navy exercised an option for the provision of the funding for an extra duration of development for 18 months. Ionfinity so far has received nearly $1.3 million under the Navy contract.

Both Ionfinity and Viaspace have headquarters in Irvine, Calif.

The Small Business Technology Transfer Program of the U.S. Navy awarded the Miniature Electronic Sniffer for Navy Vertical Takeoff Unmanned Aerial Vehicles project to Ionfinity.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA, Sionex, Caltech, and Imaginative Technologies, Viaspace and Ionfinity are collaborating on the development of small, sensitive sniffer sensor mainly for defense applications.

The sniffer sensor is in the form of a stand-alone and compact chemical detection device.

The sensor incorporates a micro-gas chromatograph unit for better confirmation and detection capability and a powerful detector that is known as the differential mobility spectrometer.

The sensor has adopted a non-radioactive ionization technique that doesn't ionize multiply or fragment the specimens that are sampled. the company said.

"This gadget will able to detect particular chemicals at trace quantities as low as parts per billion in less than 5 seconds," said the company.

Ionfinity Chief Executive Officer James Weiss said the sensor can be used for security industry, as well as commercial applications related to the medicine, agricultural, and environmental monitoring.

The company said the sensors are based on new mass spectrometry technology that can detect and analyze extremely small quantities or residues of chemicals and hazardous materials, such as explosives, toxic gases, chemical or biological weapons and drugs.

The portable monitoring devices and detection systems could potentially have direct application in the defense and homeland security industry.

An authoritative work on chemical sensors by Peter Gruendler says research in the area of chemical and biochemical sensors and the development of respective applications are growing rapidly.

Analysts said the market for chemical sensors was set to grow once the device was adopted in the U.S. military, as other military systems worldwide would follow suit.

Demand in non-military applications, such as environmental monitoring, is also set to grow amid global concerns over climate change.

With research crossing interdisciplinary boundaries, civilian and military scientists face the task of bringing sometimes conflicting and confusing approaches together in a coherent form.

Gruendler cites existing gaps between the different "ways of thinking" over chemical sensors in chemistry, physics and engineering.

While his research provides a firm grounding for engineers, industrial and academic researchers, as well as practitioners and novices, commercial development has led to a scramble for proprietary methods and technology amid signs the chemical sensor technology could have a wide-ranging potential and open up new avenues for revenue and profit for companies active in the field.

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