About the project
The quality of treated wastewater for agriculture is under more and more stringent control - particularly heavy metal contamination. Heavy metal contamination, such as e.g. cadmium, copper, lead and nickel, is one of the more difficult problems of water contamination to analyse. Analysis of water for heavy metal contamination is a slow and expensive process and usually requires the shipping of samples to distant labs with a minimum turn around time of 24 hours though routinely 3-5 days. The standard method for heavy metal analysis of water uses the slow, expensive and cumbersome techniques of atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) or inductively-coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS). Electrochemical water analysis, such as anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV), is attractive because it is fast, portable and inexpensive. The aim of this PhD project is to develop a cheap electrode for the analysis of treated wastewater using functionalized nanoporous membranes. The need for such a sensor is clear and the low cost and ease of use of the proposed sensor will make protecting the quality of treated waste-water cheap and easy and therefore more common and accessible to more people.
For full project details visit the Inspire project page.
Supervisors
- Doctor Iris Nandhakumar (University of Southampton)
- Professor Antonios Kanaras (University of Southampton)
