Assuring water quality : improved electronics of the new generation of miniaturised microfluidic chemical analysers

Assuring good water quality is vital for the health of our rivers, lakes and oceans, and is also important in regulating a range of industrial processes (including drinking water supply). At the moment, collecting data about important parameters such as nutrients (e.g. nitrate and phosphate) and dissolved metals (e.g. iron) is difficult and expensive. This is because it relies on the manual collection of individual water samples that are sent back to the laboratory for analysis.

This project advances a range of miniature chemical analysers that are able to perform this task automatically. They can be submerged in rivers, in lakes, or at the at the bottom of the ocean, collecting high-frequency data about the chemistry of the water. In many cases the data can be sent wirelessly back to the user for real-time information.

Compared to other sensors that are already commercially available, these miniaturised analysers provide data quality that is as good as (or in some cases better than) data collected via manual sampling and laboratory analysis. The analysers use microfluidics and lab-on-chip technology, meaning they use miniaturised versions of the high-quality wet-chemical analysis methods used in the laboratory, meanwhile consuming very low volume of reagents, sample, and power. This makes them suitable for long term (several months to one year) deployment. These analysers provide data that can be better trusted with very little human intervention, and are not subject to the same kind of sensor drift and interferences that plague many existing sensors.

The miniature analysers were developed for ocean science applications via 10 years of R&D at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. This project will allow necessary engineering steps to turn the miniature analysers from research tools into commercial products. Once commercialised, the technology will be available worldwide for many industrial and environmental applications.

This project overcomes the final hurdle in turning this technology from a research tool into a globally-accessible viable product. The true impact of this technology will finally be realised, as it is turned into a range of market-leading tools available to water quality mangers, regulators, water companies, and industry worldwide

At the end of this project, the technology will have been turned into a product suitable for both ocean science and new larger markets, adapted so that it can be produced in a cost-effective manner, and validated via a series of demonstration deployments in new markets.