Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PANDa (PANDa - Portable Multi-ANalyzer for the Detection of metals in water)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-11-01 al 2023-10-31
Even though there are rules about water quality in Europe, the quality of water is getting worse. This is causing more health problems, like cancer, and harming our environment. It shows that we're not doing a good job taking care of our water, especially when it comes to pollutants harmful at very concentration (= micropollutants, like metals, drug residus, pesticides) that are hard to detect.
One reason for this is that we analyze micropollutants by sending samples to test water in labs but this solution too slow to catch problems quickly. Plus, with climate change and less water available, reusing water in industries becomes important, adding another challenge.
We urgently need better and faster ways to check water quality and manage how we treat it. PANDa is working on solutions to tackle these big problems.
• We've successfully developed an extremely sensitive detection module that allows us to quantitatively analyze traces of harmful metal pollutants. This module, combined with our previous work at Klearia, can handle sample preparation, instrument calibration (known as PANDa), data processing, and measurement communication autonomously, thanks to its small size and automation.
• We’ve decreased the need of maintenance, which involves no human intervention, is less frequent (over 350 analyses instead of 250 at the beginning of the project) and reduced to a consumable replacement, taking approximately 1 minute and requiring no technical skills.
• We're also developing analysis methods for eight parameters, primarily toxic metals: Chromium, Cadmium, Lead, Zinc, Iron, Nickel, Manganese, Cobalt, and Bromates, using this new sensor technology. We aim to continue our efforts to achieve our target of 11 to 12 parameters by the end of the program, including expanding to pesticides and pharmaceutical residue detection.
Furthermore, Klearia has achieved a significant milestone by collaborating with a major global player, Suez, to implement industrial pilots. These pilot projects are crucial to introduce our technology to a traditionally conservative market.
We will need to continue working on technical developments, especially expanding the range of analyzable parameters to meet most of the needs for chemical pollutant analysis in water. Our goal is to further reduce costs and develop artificial intelligence that enables operators to take simple and effective actions, making water monitoring even more accessible and essential for water treatment facilities.