Real time tracing of clay movement in fresh and marine waters as carriers of pollutants, or indicators of sediment transport and deposition

Clay is a key part of many of the world's soils, due to its ease of transport in flowing water it is an important means by which pollutants are dispersed in the environment. Such pollutants include: phosphorus, potassium, heavy metals and pesticides. Clay particles are moved by both overland and subsurface flow, which may then enter lakes, rivers and the sea. Understanding how suspended clays move with time in the environment has been hampered by lack of a way to easily observe this using suitable tracers. In this case, tracers are particles moving in unison with other water-borne clay particles, but more easily observed.

Through a NERC funded PhD, a unique clay tracer (CT) has been developed allowing clay particle movement by water to be seen in real-time without altering how the particles move or needing sampling methods that progressively remove the CT or disrupt processes one is observing. As the CT consists of clay particles coated in a fluorescent dye already used for environmental monitoring, the CT is suitable for large-scale environmental use with minimal environmental risk. Several valuable commercial applications have been identified for CTs within the environmental consultancy (EC) market including understanding:

- Potential sources, pathways and sinks of clay sized particles and associated pollutants in water eg where pollutants are deposited and how those found in marine /freshwater sediments got there.

- The effectiveness of mitigation measures for trapping and removing clay sized material from surface waters.

- Understanding the movement of clay sized material through industrial processes e.g waste recycling facilities.

- Tracing the movement of polluted or nuisance wind-blown dusts from industrial sites.

A basic commercial strategy supported by intellectual property protection is in place for the CT, plus some understanding of the EC market and benefits of the CT over its competitors. However, market research expertise is needed to help us better understand the market, its size, identify potential ECs interested in using the technology and what type of CT product these businesses need. With this information we'll be better placed to establish demonstration projects and commercial relationships to get the CT used by ECs in the above and other applications. We also need to understand: who can produce the CT in 100Kg quantities, check production of tonne quantities won't need REACh registration and see if a strategy for strengthening our patent application can work. Our objectives are:

1 Subscribe to Environment Analyst (E An.) and digest the information in several global and UK EC market and company reports, to understand the CT market size.

2 Identify and access any other significant sources of market research to understand the CT market in the UK and other significant markets: Europe, North America, Australia, Middle East, China and Africa.

3 Use lists of major then smaller EC companies identified by E An. in the UK and globally to determine: who uses particle tracers, for what purposes and if our CT is of interest.

4 Conduct open interviews initially focusing on UK ECs likely to be interested in a CT to confirm if CTs are really of interest to them and answer many other questions.

5 Undertake a SWOT analysis on the CT.

6 Identify an initial route to commercialise the CT and a list of ECs for initial discussions.

7 Identify companies able to produce CTs in 100Kg quantities, and understand: any scale-up issues, costs for CTs of different particle size ranges, any legislative issues and recommended storage options.

8 Check if both CT components needed for larger-scale production are already REACh registered by potential suppliers, minimising the risk that further scale-up will need registration of the CT itself.

9 Determine via patent searches if a route exists to strengthen our CT patent application.

UK Stakeholders: Inventors, EA, SEPA, ECs, CT producers.

John Quinton, Jackie Pates and Robert Hardy- Lancaster University
This project will enable market research for us to better understand the market for the clay tracer, its size, identify potential environmental consultancies interested in using the tracer and the type of tracer products these businesses need. This will improve our position and refine our commercial strategy for establishing the commercial relationships to demonstrate the tracer and get it used by the environmental consultancy industry. The project will also provide us with an understanding of: who can produce the tracer up to 100Kg quantities, if further scale-up will require REACh registration, and if a strategy for strengthening our patent application can work.

We believe a commercialised tracer will practically benefit environmental consultants in determining:

- Potential sources, pathways and sinks of clay sized particles and associated pollutants in water eg where pollutants are deposited and how those found in marine /freshwater sediments got there.

- The effectiveness of mitigation measures for trapping and removing clay sized material from surface waters.

- The movement of clay sized material through industrial processes e.g waste recycling facilities.

- The movement of wind-blown dusts from industrial sites and if these are the cause of off-site nuisance or pollution incidents.

Therefore following initial demonstration work and further development of the image capture and processing software, we expect the main impact of the tracer will be in helping to better protect our environment from particulate bound pollutants from both point and diffuse sources. In doing so we expect the following additional impacts:


Environmental Consultancy Industry
Improving existing services and creating new services and sales in both the UK and abroad using the tracer in the above application areas.


Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales, Northern Ireland Environment Agency and Scottish Environment Protection Agency
Supporting them achieve their environmental protection objectives involving water-borne and air-borne pollutants via improved services from the environmental consultancy industry in the above application areas.


Tracer Producers
A new product and some new sales.


Robert Hardy
Work providing a consultancy service using and demonstrating the tracer and possibly a job with an environmental consultancy company wishing to provide tracer services.


Follow-On Project
Clearly the above impacts will take time to occur. To enable these we will also require a follow-on project which will focus on five elements and if resources allow a sixth:
1. Working with a manufacturer to scale up production of the tracer and overcome issues such as recycling or disposal of water containing unbound rhodamine.

2. Carrying out field trials on the tracer, where possible involving selected environmental consultancies, to demonstrate the tracer fitness for purpose.

3. Working with selected environmental consultancies to begin offering them a commercial service for sufficiently demonstrated applications of the tracer.

4. Identifying the tools and libraries the software draws on and if any would require commercial licensing, or if freely available alternatives exist.

5. Developing software to make it more user friendly, bug free and suitable for use on progressively larger land areas.

6. If resources permit write at least important parts of the software in a language such as C to better protect the code (as complied executable code) so it can't easily be re-written by someone else. This will then result in software that supports being licensed.