Despiste de contaminantes emergentes através de dispositivos móveis

The main objective of this research proposal is to develop smart-phone based analytical methodologies for in-situ screening of emerging contaminants in environmental waters. Despite the increasing number of reports on utilization of smart-phone cameras and dedicated software for image analysis, most applications are until now focused on health-related issues or they do not reach the detection limits required for environmental analysis. Hence, our idea is to concentrate target analytes from water samples in solid-phase extraction membranes, followed by evaluation of the amount of retained compounds after addition of a color developing agent or by direct analysis in case of fluorescence quenching of quantum/carbon dots by UV absorbing substances using smart-phones. This methodology is expected to have a low cost (less than one euro, where the major cost is the extracting membrane that can be subdivided for several analysis) in order to be amenable for field implementation using a relatively low sample amount (target volume of 10 mL). This project will also explore two other topics: additive manufacturing (3D-printing) and citizen science. Research on replacing the commercially available membranes will be undertaken, through printing the sorbent material by fused deposition modelling (FDM) or stereolithography (SLA). Although the construction of small lab devices, electrodes, or total analysis systems have been reported, the 3D-printing of sorbent material is still in its infancy. It is indeed one of the major challenges of this project, but the use of commercially available extracting membranes in parallel experiments will mitigate any risk concerning this topic. The outputs of this project will also contribute to the implementation of the citizen science concept. There are also challenges, namely the assurance of quality data during sampling and the level of experience of citizen scientists. The methodology to be developed will facilitate the acquisition of data through the dedicated app (which will also include a tag for location and time of sample collection) and only samples that are suspicious (positive in the screening test) will be further collected and sent to the lab. We envisage that this approach will contribute to a more effective surveillance, with resources focused on hot-spots and contaminated areas.