Abstract
Multi-parameter water quality monitoring is crucial in resource-limited areas to provide persistent water safety. Conventional water monitoring techniques are time-consuming, require skilled personnel, are not user-friendly and are incompatible with operating on-site. Here, we develop a multi-parameter water quality monitoring system (MWQMS) that includes an array of low-cost, easy-to-use, high-sensitivity electrochemical sensors, as well as custom-designed sensor readout circuitry and smartphone application with wireless connectivity. The system overcomes the need of costly laboratory-based testing methods and the requirement of skilled workers. The proposed MWQMS system can simultaneously monitor pH, free chlorine, and temperature with sensitivities of 57.5 mV/pH, 186 nA/ppm and 16.9 mV/°C, respectively, as well as sensing of BPA with <10 nM limit of detection. The system also provides seamless interconnection between transduction of the sensors’ signal, signal processing, wireless data transfer and smartphone app-based operation. This interconnection was accomplished by fabricating nanomaterial and carbon nanotube-based sensors on a common substrate, integrating these sensors to a readout circuit and transmitting the sensor data to an Android application. The MWQMS system provides a general platform technology where an array of other water monitoring sensors can also be easily integrated and programmed. Such a system can offer tremendous opportunity for a broad range of environmental monitoring applications.
Highlights
Water quality monitoring is vital for water safety determination and associated public health [1,2,3,4,5]
We develop a Multi-Parameter Water Quality Monitoring System (MWQMS) that can simultaneously measure pH, free Cl concentration, and temperature, and electrochemically measure bisphenol A (BPA) in drinking water
Accurate monitoring of free Cl concentration is critical for the safety of public health, which is advised by the World Health Organization (WHO)
Summary
Water quality monitoring is vital for water safety determination and associated public health [1,2,3,4,5]. Standard water quality monitoring systems are complex, time-consuming and expensive due to transport of samples, use of sophisticated equipment and trained personnel [8]. Real-time water quality monitoring technologies have made considerable advancement in recent years [11]. The high expenses related with the equipment, maintenance and calibration of water sensors have prevented them from being used in large distribution systems and for end-users. Most of these sensor systems measure only one parameter at a time [12,13,14]. It is critical to monitor key water quality parameters with high sensitivity and accuracy in a reliable and easy-to-use manner, which can be achieved with a multi-parameter sensing platform
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