Developing plastic electronic volatile organic compound sensors for determining soil health

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Soil is one of the three major natural resources essential for agricultural productivity, with the other two being air and water. Soil should be teeming with life---especially microbial life---but intensive farming practices such as frequent ploughing, the removal of crop wastes and the use of heavy machinery have degraded soils throughout the world, and the associated costs of this degradation are estimated to be $6.3--10.6 trillion.As farmer's profits are being squeezed there is considerable interest within the farming community in monitoring long-term changes in the health of their soils based on the way they farm their land.To correctly manage soil health, farmers need reliable information on the health of their soils. For this they need to be able to measure the chemical, physical, and biological properties of soil. However, farmers currently have no, or very few tools they can use to measure the biological properties of their soils. For example, current methods to assess the biological properties rely on measuring the CO2 content of soil samples, which does not provide information on the range of microbes present in the soil. Other promising techniques such as next generation DNA sequencing of soil microbes are too expensive, require experts, and provide information that is difficult to analyse (the exact roles of the vast majority of different microbial species present in a soil sample are currently unknown).In addition to CO2, microbes also release other gases called volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Despite the useful information VOCs provide on soil life, they are currently not utilized by farmers to assess soil health because the equipment to measure soil VOCs is expensive, laboratory-based, and requires trained operators. This project proposes the development of a portable, low-cost VOC sensor to overcome those constraints. The proposed sensor that can be connected to a smart phone or laptop for powerful data analysis in a cloud-based software package and will thus complement existing soil nutrient testing practiced by farmers. Coupled with visual assessments for physical properties the proposed sensor will enable farmers to make soil health assessments themselves.P.E.S. Technologies, a plastic electronics start-up, and NIAB-EMR, a horticultural research transfer organisation, propose a joint technical feasibility study to develop a tool for the detection of soil VOC profiles. Once validated for soil health testing, the same sensor architecture could be adapted for applications in healthcare, food processing, waste management and remediation of contaminated land.