On-line biosensor for the detection of putative toxicity in water contaminants

• We created an improved version of our toxicity biosensor for real-time water toxicity monitoring.
• New design allows longer measurement time, higher sensitivity and increased bacterial stability.
• New setup was more sensitive to toxic compounds in water than previously.
• New setup showed its capabilities to determined the water toxicity of the real water environmental samples.

Potential threat on drinking water requires monitoring solutions, such as the one proposed herein, as a real-time, wide ranged, water monitoring system to detect the presence of toxicants in water. We studied the role of a selected number of parameters affecting performance and, thus, improved the prototype into an optimized next-generation device, resulting in enabling increased measurement duration, coupled with increased sensitivity. The chosen parameters in question were the peristaltic flow system, the fiber probe matrix stability through a re-design of the fiber probe holder and flow unit cell, as well as the modulation of bacterial medium concentration to increase bioreporter performance while keeping biofouling in check. Measurements were made with spiked samples and validated with polluted field-collected samples.

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