Skip to main content
European Commission logo
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
CORDIS Web 30th anniversary CORDIS Web 30th anniversary
Content archived on 2024-05-07

Totally integrated micro-engineered ion sensors for large scale applications

Objective

The overall objective of this project is to research and develop a novel family of autonomous analytical instruments to be used to in-situ water monitoring of ammonia/ammonium content. Monitoring of ammonia/ammonium content has been chosen as a generic practically important task with a wide potential market. Prototypes developed on this project will be subject to end user field trials in real environmental application areas (coastal and estuarine waters, fresh water, waste water, industrial effluents, landfills) at various geographical test sites in different EU countries using different deployment scenarios. This project follows a first phase which demonstrated the efficacy of totally integrated Ion-Selective Conductometric Microsensors (ISCOM) and Durable ISCOM (DISCOM); further developments of these microsensors will be used as the components for the prototype analytical instruments demonstrated on this project.

The project will develop a number of new system components for autonomous analytical instruments, which include smart sensor units with embedded components, such as valves, filters and pumps as well as redundancy and intelligent features to accommodate the industrial requirements for quality and durability. The development of the technical means and respective fabrication technologies for the new system components, together with the systems integration, form the major part of this project.

The need for new sensor systems is largely driven by environmental legislation, which requires the increasingly stringent measurement and control of water quality. Current measurement systems are expensive to operate and maintain, restrict the number of analysed samples, and do not permit real-time monitoring as demanded by industry. In situ deployment of existing fixed-site monitors or analytical buoys is prohibited by their low reliability, large size and power requirements. Therefore, the development of intelligent in situ monitors applicable on a large scale at affordable costs addresses a growing and important market area. Most, if not all industrial sectors will require the use of accurate, reproducible and stable in situ field sensors and sensor systems, which are reliable, inexpensive and of low power consumption that can be easily operated by non-expert staff.

The consortium consists of 4 research partners and 3 industrial partners from 4 different EEC member states and Switzerland. The partners bring together a unique blend skills and expertise, as they include materials suppliers, instrument and software developers, and end users. The partners would not be able to establish an equally qualified consortium within their own countries. The partners see significant potential markets for products which will be developed on the basis of this project after its completion, and the formation of a European consortium will enable the undertaking of more comprehensive and widely based dissemination and exploitation activities, which will enable a European presence in this growing and important market-place.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Call for proposal

Data not available

Coordinator

Institut fuer Chemo- und Biosensorik, Muester Ev
EU contribution
No data
Address
Mendelstrasse 7
48149 Muenster
Germany

See on map

Total cost
No data

Participants (6)