Development of a nanoparticle-based sensing platform for waterborne ionic polymers.

采矿、道路建设和骨料洗涤等工业作业导致废水中悬浮颗粒浓度很高。由于它们的体积小，悬浮颗粒不会迅速沉降，很容易在流动的水中长距离运输。使用大型沉淀池是最常用的处理方法，用于在排放到自然水域之前去除排水中的悬浮沉积物。通过化学混凝和絮凝（例如，主要是阳离子聚合物絮凝剂）的二级处理通常是有必要的，以便在排放到环境之前去除这些悬浮颗粒。这是因为已知水中高浓度的悬浮颗粒（在科学文献中称为总悬浮沉积物、总悬浮固体或TSS）会对包括鱼类在内的许多水生生物造成不利影响。因此，为从工业废水中去除TSS制定了严格的监管准则，特别是当工业废水排放到相对清澈、有鱼的山间溪流时。开发一种简单、可靠和具有成本效益的技术来准确测量工业和自然水中阳离子聚合物的浓度，对于以后给药和减轻聚合物的危害是绝对必要的。在这个项目中，阿尔伯塔大学的研究人员将与Clearflow公司的工作人员合作，研究基于纳米材料的光学方法的可行性，并开发方法和标准协议，以测量光学技术对许多不同聚合物的功效。

Industrial operations such as mining, road building and aggregate washing result in high concentrations of suspended particles in effluent waters. Due to their small size, the suspended particles do not settle rapidly and are easily transported over long distances in flowing water. The use of large settling ponds is the most often used treatment for removal of suspended sediments from drainage waters prior to release into natural waters. Secondary treatment by chemical coagulation and flocculation (e.g., primarily cationic polymer flocculants) is often warranted to remove these suspended particles before discharge to the environment. This is because high concentrations of suspended particles (in scientific literature referred to as total suspended sediments, total suspended solids or TSS) in water are known to cause adverse effects in many aquatic organisms, including fish. Therefore, there are strict regulatory guidelines set for the removal of TSS from industrial effluent waters, especially when they discharge into relatively clear, fish-bearing mountain streams. The development of a simple, robust and cost-effective technique to accurately measure the concentration of cationic polymer in industrial and natural waters is absolutely essential to allow for later dosing and mitigation of polymer. This project will see researchers at the University of Alberta work with staff at Clearflow Inc. to examine the feasibility of the optical based approach based upon nanomaterials and develop methods and standard protocols to measure the efficacy of optical based technique for a number of different polymers.