Homeowner water quality testing through use of miniaturized ISE and FET-based sensor arrays

这在许多农村司法管辖区很常见，但在加拿大海事地区尤其如此，大多数相对分散的非城市居民依赖私人拥有和维护的挖掘或钻探油井，因为低人口密度决定了市政系统是不可行的。不幸的是，这些私人拥有的水井中，很少有在没有明显威胁或严重健康后果的情况下，定期评估相对于水质指南的化学或微生物超标。这是不幸的，因为在新斯科舍省，33%的水井在一种或多种化学污染物中存在基于健康的超标，估计有25%-40%的私人水井受到粪便大肠菌群污染。流行病学研究表明，铅、砷和铀的身体负担增加，揭示了这种受污染水的重要性。与Industrial Partner Drinkable合作，我们的团队正在为井主开发一种家庭测试试剂盒，该试剂盒可能也适用于水产养殖部门，其基础是一种一次性使用的微型传感器阵列，结果会传送到用户的手机上。该阵列将由用于检测溶解金属物种的离子选择电极(ISE)和用于检测裂解细菌细胞成分的场效应晶体管(FET)组成。每个分析物的水质参数将以数字形式报告，并根据加拿大饮用水指南进行表示，但也可以简单地用颜色编码的方式表示，表明每个分析物是低于、等于或高于建议的饮用水浓度。超过规定的分析物将促使用户联系附近的水质实验室和/或公共卫生机构，以获得更多信息和验证性测试。尽管房主水检测将是一个主要的细分市场，但淡水水产养殖系统同样需要实时水质检测，因此饮用水公司将测试带有水产养殖设施的水质传感器，以衡量相对于当前行业实践的用户体验、测试准确性和成本效益。

Common to many rural jurisdictions, but particularly so in Maritime Canada, a majority of the relatively dispersed non-urban residents rely on privately owned and maintained dug or drilled wells as low population densities dictate municipal systems are not feasible. Unfortunately, few of these privately-owned wells, in the absence of an obvious threat or acute health outcome, routinely assess chemical or microbial exceedances relative to water quality guidelines. This is unfortunate as in Nova Scotia, 33% of wells have health-based exceedances in one or mor chemical contaminants, with an estimated 25-40% of private wells having fecal coliform contamination. The significance of this contaminated water is revealed by epidemiological studies demonstrating elevated body burdens of lead, arsenic, and uranium. With Industrial partner Drinkable, our team is developing an at home testing kit for well owners, which may also have application in the aquaculture sector, based on a single-use miniaturized sensor array with results conveyed to the users cell-phone. The array will be comprised of ion-selective electrodes (ISEs) for detection of dissolved metal species, with field-effect transistors (FETs) for detection of lysed bacterial cell constituents. Water quality parameters for each analyte will be reported both numerically and expressed relative to Canadian drinking water guidelines, but also represented simply in a colour-coded manner indicating whether each analyte is below, at, or above recommended drinking water concentrations. Analytes exceeding guidelines will prompt the user to contact nearby water quality laboratories and/or Public Health agencies for additional information and confirmatory testing. Although homeowner water testing will be a primary market segment, freshwater aquaculture systems similarly require real-time water quality testing so Drinkable will test-market the water quality sensors with aquaculture facilities to gauge user experience, test accuracy, and cost-effectiveness relative to current industry practices.