| Abstract Title: | Lab-quality colorimetric ammonia & phosphate monitoring |
| Presenter Name: | Dr Oliver Hofmann |
| Company/Organisation: | South West Sensor |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
Abstract Information :
Ammonia is extremely damaging to the environment due to its toxicity to aquatic life. Apart from agriculture, treatment works effluent and Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) are main contributors, which require Environment Act, Section 82 monitoring. Phosphate has similarly damaging effects through algae growth & eutrophication and could in the future be added to the monitoring requirement. Despite this, there are currently few solutions to provide accurate, sensitive and low-maintenance monitoring of these key parameters.
SouthWestSensor has recently launched a new generation of compact microfluidic ammonia & phosphate sensor probes that produce lab-quality data and have ultra-low reagent consumption, meaning that they can be deployed int the field for 3 months at a time without servicing. The approach is based on gold standard lab methods, indophenol chemistry for total ammoniacal nitrogen (ISO 23695) and molybdenum blue for phosphate (ISO 6878). Reagent pouch and inlet filter changes are straight forward and require less than 30 min on site.
For the Environment Act, Section 82 monitoring, our sensors could be used in conjunction with less accurate low-cost swarm sensors which can provide indicative readings. Our lab-quality sensors could serve as ‘truth points’ in the monitoring network and be used at key sites and for more detailed spillage investigations.
First trial data for both ammonia and phosphate monitoring will be presented.
