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Online and automated E. coli monitoring for 100% safe drinking water

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ColiSense Online (Online and automated E. coli monitoring for 100% safe drinking water)

Berichtszeitraum: 2020-07-01 bis 2021-12-31

Drinking water is the most essential resource for life. Access to safe drinking water can prevent disease outbreaks, and lower diarrheal and other disease burdens. Any tool that increases the safety of drinking water will be adopted quickly if it is reliable, affordable, and simple to use.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) around 330,000 cases of water-related disease such as E. coli are reported yearly in Europe. Between 2000 and 2007 there were 354 outbreaks of waterborne diseases across 14 countries. Symptoms include diarrhoea, vomiting, stomach pains, nausea, headache, and fever. With the current technologies it can take two or more days to identify infectious risks in drinking water and by then the affected water is likely to have been consumed.
ColiSense brought to industrial production stage a fast and accurate analyser capable of detecting and quantifying E. coli cells in drinking water below the regulation threshold limits (1 cell per 100ml). ColiSense can be applied in a wide variety of industries, including the ones with the highest quality water demands in Europe (water utilities, food and beverage, pharma, cosmetic, etc.), and reach very high levels of efficiency. Our solution makes monitoring low-cost and easy to use with an enabled cloud dashboard (for remote monitoring) and analytic tools. The ultimate goal of ColiSense is to eliminate the large problem of E. coli contaminated drinking water distribution in the EU.
bNovate Technologies AG (bNovate) is a company that offers solutions to drinking water utilities, food and beverage and pharma industries for the automated monitoring of microbiological parameters and fast detection of bacterial contaminations in water. The bNovate staff is composed of experts and professionals who have extensive knowledge in a wide variety of subjects related to water science, microbiology and flow cytometry.
During the project, a major effort was devoted to the optimisation and integration of all the subsystems of the ColiSense instrument, to build a stand-alone and autonomous device including the embedded integrated control and analysis software. After determining the operational conditions of the integrated platform, the industrial prototypes were tested in operational environments, paving the way for the deployment of an industrial production line. In addition to working on the product market readiness, our sales and marketing team participated in several fairs and networking events, used as an active means to identify, and contact stakeholders and potential customers.
ColiSense will complement our product portfolio by specifically detecting E. coli in drinking water. The presence of E. coli in drinking water is a clear indication of faecal contamination and makes water unsafe to drink. More than 300’000 cases of waterborne disease due to microbiological contamination are reported yearly in Europe, according to the World Health Organization. We address this global challenge by bringing to the market a rapid, fully automatic, and online analyser capable of detecting and quantifying E. coli bacteria in drinking water below the regulation threshold limit. We have designed a commercialisation strategy covering a wide range of end-user industries. Our targeted sectors are waterworks and bottled water industries which, together, cover almost the entire drinking water production market.
ColiSense
Rapid and automated dection of E. coli with ColiSense Online
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