Water Quality and Water Toxicity Sensing

Water quality sensing varies from specific chemical and biological sensing to toxicity sensing, depending on the application. This paper will give an overview of quantitative electrochemical sensors for the presence of heavy metals and bacteria in water supplies for use for commercial and municipal water analysis, but then goes on to detail new water toxicity biosensors utilizing thylakoid membrane modified electrodes and mitochondrial modified electrodes to provide threshold sensing of water toxicity.  These type of sensors do not determine the contaminate present in the water and do not provide quantification of amount of contaminate present, but instead provide a sensor that determines if water is safe or toxic via the effect of plant (thylakoid) photosynthesis rates and mammalian (mitochondrial) metabolism. These new sensors are being designed for individual, point of use analysis.