Water is essential to our lives, our industry, and our environment. It is our most precious resource. Despite this, our ability to monitor the quality of our freshwater assets is lacking. The existing tools are expensive and complex, requiring on-site sample collection and processing. This costs time and money, meaning that in many industries sampling is often periodic, and contamination can be missed.
Current methods of detecting trace contaminants in the environment require the use of off-site analytical laboratories. This requires days of time preventing operators and managers from improving their process or making decisions. By combining bioengineered bacteria, and voltammetric detection methods, a fast and quantitative detection method can be achieved using a light portable device.
This project focuses the development of a fast, sensitive water detector.