Within the Coincidente programme, which depends on the Directorate General of Armaments and Material (DGAM), QUIXOTE II was one of the projects selected in the call for R&D projects by the Ministry of Defence. The contract was awarded to the company Ibatech Tecnología for a value of €449,200 in terms of funding and activities that will last until mid-2025.
QUIXOTE II is a CBRN decontamination system, consisting of an atmospheric chamber where a cold plasma is generated, capable of decontaminating chemically and biologically sensitive equipment and materials, electronic equipment or personal protective equipment, and a technologically based application for monitoring the decontamination effect and processing this information. The system can quantify the change in concentration of biological and chemical pollutants, in real time and remotely, without the need to manipulate the treated surface or to take a sample for further analysis.
One of the strong points of QUIXOTE II is that it represents a simple, safe, and reliable biological and chemical decontamination solution, which does not require the use of liquids or additives, and which is environmentally friendly, as it does not generate toxic residues at the end of the decontamination cycle.
Beyond our borders
Ibatech has the collaboration of the Plasma Innovation Laboratory of the University of Cordoba, one of the most advanced centres in the field of plasma physics and characterisation. For the validation and certification phase of the system, the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA) and the Vojensky vyzkumny ustav (Czech Republic) (VVU), two of the reference military research institutes at European level for the validation and certification of the STANAG 4632’s neutralisation capacity against real agents, have been involved in the project. The monitoring of the biological decontamination level will be developed on the basis of the application of photonic sensors of LDI (Estonia).
Defence applications (Estonia)
The application of cold plasma, at atmospheric pressure and without the use of carrier gases or chemicals, offers the defence community the possibility of decontaminating sensitive equipment, electronics and communications, as well as vehicle interiors, without producing waste or harming the environment.