A portable and easy-to-use sensor enabled residents of a Massachusetts town to test their own tap water for lead in a community-based study.
The sensor could allow more precise pinpointing of lead contamination in drinking water, which can come from old lead service lines, an individual homes鈥� pipes, or even from lead-containing faucets and fixtures.
鈥淚 think this will come to a point where we can scale up, and it will be available in a hardware store or online,鈥� says Pradeep Kurup, a geotechnical engineer at the Univ. of Massachusetts Lowell and the study鈥檚 principal investigator. Building inspectors would be able to test for lead on the spot, Kurup adds, and residents could check their own water without relying on municipalities. Water utilities are increasingly ramping up lead testing in the U.S. after the contamination in Flint, MI, Kurup explains, but they are still limited in their sampling and rely on large bench equipment at certified labs.
Portable sensors have been developed, but they require training or chemistry expertise. Kurup and his colleagues wanted to make something that would walk a non-expert through the testing. The device uses an electrochemical method called voltammetry. It consists of an electrode that is...
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