Periodic Reporting for period 3 - CENSE (Enabling the continuous monitoring of drinking water with an all-in-one sensor)
Période du rapport: 2021-11-01 au 2022-08-31
- definition of the product specifications based on customers’ feedbacks
- finalization of critical components development, test and validation
- Integral Probe prototype development and validation
- 12 representative prototypes manufactured
- Prototype production line created
- In-lab tests
- Ongoing improvement (defects improvement)
- Improved lab-on chip
- Project management, quality and budget follow-up
- Coaching activities in DFMA (Design For Manufacturing and Assembly
- Marketing and Commercial activities structuring and start-up
o Dedicated marketing and commercial manager hiring
o Coaching done
o Web site update
o Video presentation of the product
o Commercial documentation (brochures)
o Commercialisation plan
o Exhibitions (Pollutec)
- In-situ-tests
o 4 probes installed and tested on 3 sites
- Dessign validation and freeze
- Marketing and Commercial
o Selling price and product costs updated
The second solution is electrochemical (or amperometric) technology which measures only one species (HOCl). It uses a set of electrodes of different materials and specific membranes. The total amount of free chlorine needs additional accurate pH and temperature measurement to be determined.
The advantages of EFS IntegralProbe compared to both the colorimetric and the electrochemical technology are showed in Tab. 1.
The IntegralProbe is more cost-effective, safer to handle and requires much less maintenance than other solutions:
- CENSE’s IntegralProbe beats on price both the electrochemical solutions.
- The IntegralProbe is more environmentally-friendly (?) than amperometric solutions and is not influenced by pH, flow or temperature variation.
- Unlike its main amperometric competitors it transfers collected data directly to the user’s server and not on a private one. Since most water companies use their own software for water management, metering and other functions, this feature is particularly interesting for the sector.
- The device is battery powered and lasts longer than one year including periodic data transmission.
- For chlorine measurement, the amperometric method is not the industry standard, therefore all sensors must be calibrated and compared with the colorimetric ISO 7393 method. This is not necessary with the IntegralProbe.
There is a clear gap in the market for a chlorine sensor that passes data directly to the company’s server, is safe to handle, priced competitively and is integrated with other sensors for temperature, pressure, turbidity and conductivity. CENSE’s IntegralProbe intends to be the solution to this problem, providing a low-cost, low-maintenance and high-performing system for measuring chlorine to water supply service providers.