Early Warning for Chemical Contamination of Water
Building on technology operated for 15 years at East Coast water utilities and a superfund site, Blue Sources has launched Monitoring-as-a-Service (MaaS) to create a 24x7 no-touch alert system.
Like other utilities, we use fancy online analytical devices. When we get an alarm from one of those devices, we first check our fish biomonitor. If the fish signal shows normal we go figure out why our other equipment malfunctioned again.
— Manager, Water Quality Lab, East Coast Public Water Utility |
BG-n: The Patented Technology Behind MaaSThe BG-n product line comprises different physical configurations of online devices that continuously monitor for the presence of toxic chemicals in water streams. Present applications include installs on incoming and finished streams at water utilities as well as an effluent stream discharging into surface waters adjacent to Chesapeake Bay.
The technology specifically monitors Bluegills. The publicly available EPA Ecotox database lists thousands of studies detailing Bluegill response to various toxic chemicals. In experiments using a broad spectrum of contaminants (including arsenic, cyanide, several nerve agents, ammonia, mercuric chloride and seizure agents such as strychnine), the Army verified a highly reliable response by this technology with negligible false positives. |
Like the best systems, the BG-n serves reliably because of the simplicity of the underlying design. Working with customers, we install the device in the proximity of a water stream requiring monitoring. We then pipe a flow of one liter per minute or more through the device, feeding data to a bio-monitor software program from both the fish monitoring chambers and a water quality sonde.
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Inside the device, water circulates through eight discrete parallel chambers, each with a live swimming and breathing Bluegill. Eight pairs of electric field sensors detect the fish breathing patterns, sending signals through an amplification card then analog to digital processors. Ultimately, the software combines the monitoring and sonde data to continually update "normal" states and alarm under non-normal conditions.
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Ten million years ago mother nature started evolving Bluegills to breathe uncontaminated fresh water. More recently, researchers discovered that Bluegills and other fish generated a measurable electric field while breathing. US Army scientists cleverly realized this phenomenon could protect people. How so?
As fish move and ventilate their gills, their muscle action generates an electric field which in turn produces a signal pattern akin to a normal sinus rhythm on an EKG. Bluegills, as you would expect, breathe differently in water contaminated with acutely toxic chemicals, changing the signal pattern. |
So Army scientists built a proof-of-concept device whereby they piped a drinking water flow through eight aquarium chambers, each containing a single Bluegill with electric field sensors positioned above and below to read breathing signals. After combining neural network technology with years of trial and error, Army scientists tuned the device to trigger an alarm condition whenever the "Bluegill sensors" detected acutely toxic chemicals in the water.
In the wild, Bluegills and other fish detect contaminants daily, but no one "hears" their warnings. Like sentinels standing a post, our Bluegills serve a two-week tour of duty, and we hear their warnings. |
321 Ballenger Center Dr, Suite #125
Frederick, MD 21703 |