Small Irish firm T.E. Laboratories has been granted over €1m to develop its innovative water quality sensor tech to provide real-time pollution monitoring.
Water quality is a global problem, not just for lakes and rivers but also coastlines and public water sources. The sources of contamination that can reduce water quality range from llegal waste dumping and accidental seepage from damaged pipes to agricultural runoff and pollutants carried in by ocean currents from another area.
Irish SME T.E. Laboratories (TelLab) is now tackling this global problem with an innovative tech solution -- a new piece of high-accuracy sensor technology that can be deployed to monitor water quality in a wide range of environments. The Aquamonitrix™ sensor has been designed to be very low-cost and provide realtime monitoring in fresh, brackish, and saltwater settings.
The company is based in County Carlow in Ireland, and developed the sensor in its in-house R&D programme. The scheme has just been awarded over €1m in European grant funding to continue development of the technology, the second major EU grant the firm has secured.
The sensor is now also being trialled by the US Environmental Protection Agency as part of it's Advanced Septic System Nitrogen Sensor Challenge. The US interest at this early stage indicates a potentially lucrative global export market for the smart sensor. TelLab CEO and Project Coordinator Mark Bowkett commented on the grant: "The funding will allow recent outputs from in-company R&D activities to be exploited fully in global markets with the aim of achieving first-to-market advantage."
Source: Written based on press release
