Cost-effective Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Based Monitoring Technologies to Improve the Performance and Reliability of Small Drinking Water Systems

Small drinking water systems consistently provide safe, reliable drinking water to their customers; however challenges of such systems include; lack of financial resources, aging infrastructure, lack of scale, and technical/logistical challenges associated with regulation compliance. The deployment ofnew cost-effective monitoring technologies hold opportunities to substantially advance infrastructure and assure compliance along with being economically viable for integration by small drinking water system operators. Sporian Microsystems has performed significant prior work developing and fielding a range of water low cost remote and in-line monitoring systems for both the government and privateindustry. The objective of the proposed work is to develop MIP based detection Materials/schemes that eliminate the need of consumable reagents and can easily be retrofitted to expand the range of detectable contaminants in existing low cost water monitoring hardware. The Phase I effort focused on MIP formulation development and demonstrating detection performance. Phase II will include: collaboration with customers/partners to guide development; optimizing and expanding upon MIPs/IIPs developed during Phase I; and developing/testing revised monitoring system hardware designs. In addition to small drinking water system operators, commercial customers for such monitoring systemsinclude civilian, homeland security, and military, for a range of environmental and process monitoring applications