The U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories has created a real-time gas and water quality monitoring system that may help in the effort to protect the nation's water supply.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories has created a real-time gas and water quality monitoring system that may become one tool in the effort to protect the nation's water supply.
The electronic system, which consists of a miniature sensor array packaged in a weatherproof housing, "can be put directly underground - in ground water or soils where the humidity reaches nearly 100 percent - and detect toxic chemicals at the site without taking samples to the lab," researcher Cliff Ho reports. "It has the capability of detecting in real time undesirable chemicals being pumped into the water supply, accidentally or intentionally. It will be able to monitor sites containing toxic chemical spills, leaking underground storage tanks and chemical waste dumps, potentially saving millions of dollars a year in the process."