Sustainable autonomous system for nitrites/nitrates and heavy metals monitoring of natural water sources

M-ERA.net 39/04.01.2016

Objectives of the project and expected results

The main goal of the project is to design and prototype a sustainable autonomous system for nitrates/nitrites and heavy metals monitoring of natural water sources.

Technical objectives:

a) Micro (photo)electrochemical sensor design, fabrication and testing;

b) Design and fabrication of high efficiency ultra-thin solar cells;

c) Power harvesting and storage device integration;

d) New materials development for sensors and solar cells (nanowires and nanotubes TiO2, ZnO, TiO2 - SnO2, SnO2, CuxS, CZTS, sensing protein molecules, flagellar filaments with large sensing area);

e) Investigation with high sensitivity optical method (Grating Coupled Interferometry, GCI), not used before for this purpose, of the deposition of these layers, molecules and their ability to bond the materials to be sensed;

f) Optimization of deposition techniques (sol-gel, hydrothermal synthesis, magnetron sputtering, spray pyrolysis, screen printing) and characterization for integration of materials with sensors and solar cells active areas;

g) Technology demonstration;

h) System (apparatus) prototyping.

The general objectives of the project, in correlation with the Call 2014 are:

a) Development of an energy autonomous system for nitrites/nitrates and heavy metals monitoring from natural water sources based on materials for sustainable and affordable low carbon energy technologies and new miniaturized devices like sensors, specialized electronic modules and software development for data acquisition and system control;

b) increasing the international cooperation

c) provide multi-disciplinarity in the project and

d) provide socio-economic benefits.

Expected results:

- New technology for an energy autonomous system to be used in water quality monitoring based on sensors arrays and networks

- Advanced design and technology for precise powering of the system using solar cells

- Obtaining of the nanostructured oxide materials with controlled architecture and complex physico-chemical characterization by the experimental methods described above.

- Development of bioinspired engineered proteins for heavy metals’ detection

- New portable, self-powered instrument to be used on field

- The prototype of autonomous system including multisensors, electronic modules with data acquisition and photovoltaic cells compensation electronics tested in real environment applications

Other proposal related results:

- Patents to be transferred to the end-users or users in order to take advantage of the above results for business purposes.

- Increasing of international cooperation, working in a multidisciplinary field

- Contribution to: green energy field development, reduction of CO2 emissions, improving the safety use of water by general population, reduction of energy costs.

- Articles published annually in ISI referee journals

- Participation to national and international conferences

- Training young people in the project by doctoral programs (topics related to the project subject)