Development of Boron Doped Diamond Sensors for Water Quality Monitoring

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

2018-19: MSc Diamond Science & Technology includes the following modules:CH976 Novel and Efficient Methods of Material SynthesisPX904 Properties and Characterization of MaterialsPX905 Defects and DopantsCH977 Theory and Modelling of MaterialsPX906 Manufacturing the Future: Industrial DiamondCH978 Surfaces, Interfaces and CoatingsCH979 Devices and FabricationPX907 Diamond Photonics and Quantum DevicesCH980 Applications of High Performance MaterialsCH981 Mini Research Project 1 and 2And either CH914 or PX908:CH914 Electrochemistry and SensorsPX908 Biomedical Optics and ApplicationsProject:Assessing the quality of water is essential for so many different application areas covering industrial use, waste water, health and safety, food processing, environmental, agriculture etc. Solution species such as pH and chlorine and related measurements provide vital information on the health of the water. Techniques commonly employed to make these measurements suffer from a variety of problems, such as stability, the need for added reagents, issues with miniaturisation, response time. Electrochemistry is one method of sensing solution species but typical electrochemical sensors are based on membrane electrodes which can suffer from a sluggish time response and frequent clogging of the membrane. Therefore this project aims to explore the development and application of membrane-free, reagent-less, fast responding, direct contact diamond based electrochemical sensors for water quality sensing. Project aims:1. Develop an understanding of how the intrinsic electrode material properties impact on the electrochemical performance of the boron doped diamond electrode2. Application of in-situ pH control3. Development of finite element models (FEM) to complement the experimental data and so aid in choice of electrode design and operating parameters4. Development of a chlorine sensor based on diamond for chlorine sensing at low concentrations, and corresponding FEM5. Implementation of pH control may be important in 4. to quantify the response of the device, this will be investigated and modelled, integration of an internal pH sensor may also be useful6. Investigating how to overcome reference electrode instability7. Investigation of the effect of solution flow on the performance of the device