Rapid assessment of river analytes
Industry and academic professionals from Germany, Spain, France and the United Kingdom collaborated in order to design this novel system for monitoring organic analytes in water. Their efforts yielded impressive results with a system that remedies the problems inherent in the current mainstream technologies. As water specimen collection must occur at a variety of sites, and as analyte numbers are expected to increase by 10% per year, this type of environmental monitoring process is both labour and resource-intensive and, as a result, very costly. Current devices are not able to detect such a variety of analytes, they are expensive, are usually dependent on laboratory facilities, and require time-consuming pre-treatment steps. In contrast, RIANA is transportable, cost-effective, flexible in terms of analyte detection, and produces results in only 15 minutes. RIANA detects analytes, or pollutant compounds, that are the by-products of industrial production processes and agricultural chemicals. This system's principal innovative attributes lie in its field and on-site use because it is portable, and in its capacity for the detection of multiple-analyte samples in water specimens. The technical features of this system utilises principles of bio and immuno-chemistry linked with optical techniques. This foundation allows the quick and accurate detection of many analytes at the same time. Specifically, RIANA uses immunoassays to identify an extensive variety of pollutants, and the detection limit is under 0.1mg/L. Analyte identification relies on Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) technology, where light from a laser diode is matched with an optical transducer. The surface of the transducer is chemically modified with analyte derivatives. Then, analyte-specific antibodies are branded with a fluorescent marker and analyte detection is founded on a binding inhibition assay. As the analyte derivatives are fixed to the transducer surface before the assay, analyte-specific antibodies that are fluorescently marked are incubated. Subsequently, the system flows the analyte solution over the transducer and analyte-specific antibodies bind to the surface. Measurements are obtained based on fluorescence signals. This technology can identify many polluting analytes, including atrazine, simazine, 2,4 dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, pentachlorophenol, paraquat, and alachlor. In fact, RIANA has already achieved international recognition as it was one of the few systems that accurately detected multi-analyte water samples during the 1st and 2nd European Technical Meeting of Biosensors for Environmental Monitoring. All these characteristics show that with RIANA, river and water pollution detection can become cheaper, quicker, and more flexible.
