(Nomination for 2011 AUREA Award): Biotoxin Meter - Instrument for biocontrol of water quality

Nis-based building cluster Dundjer has invented a biotoxin meter, a unique instrument that enables 24-hour online monitoring of the quality of water, that is, discovers the presence of dangerous matters in water. The instrument achieves that in a quick, cheap and ecologically fully acceptable manner – by using Daphnia, small planctonic crustaceans, which are highly sensitive to the presence of toxins in water.

Biotoxin meter functions by means of a simple and cheap hardware and a complex software. The instrument is based on an bioassay involving 2 chambers - one with the control group of Daphnia in stable water conditions (resembling their natural environment) and the other with the test group of Daphnia in raw water that constantly flow through that chamber at the desired pace. This system, 10 times cheaper than similar ones, since no identical system exists elsewhere in the world, uses an original software that supports it. The software controls a web camera that is taking shots of Daphnia in the chambers every 300 to 500 miliseconds 24 hours a day.

So far, about EUR 2,000 have been invested in the development of this instrument and additional funds will be required for new tests and upgrades in the future. The estimated price of the instrument is about EUR 4,000, while its life depends on hardware components and is approximately 10 years.

INNOVATION

Biotoxin meter is an instrument for the biocontrol of water quality by means of small planctonic crusteceans – Daphnia, which detects and warns of the presence of toxins in water in real time.

The innovation of biotoxin meter is reflected in the system of early detection and timely warning of the irregularity of drinking water, which is possible if the instrument is installed at the entrance of raw water into a water supply system or at running water streams.

How biotoxin meter works?

Biotoxin meter functions by means of a simple and cheap hardware and a complex software. The instrument is based on an bioassay involving 2 chambers - one with the control group of Daphnia in stable water conditions (resembling their natural environment) and the other with the test group of Daphnia in raw water that constantly flow through that chamber at the desired pace.

This instrument is controlled by means of a specially developed software. The software controls a web camera that is taking shots of Daphnia in the chambers every 300 to 500 miliseconds 24 hours a day. Based on the software analysis of these photos, the number, size and mobility of Daphnia are monitored. When the number of live Daphnia in the test chamber drops below 50 percent (the limit determined by the European toxicity test), an alarm goes off as a warning that raw water is not safe for standard treatment into drinking water (due to the presence of toxic substances). The software automatically sends date to the server and graphically presents the condition of Daphnia in the last 24 hours, as well as during the whole year, enabling online monitoring.

Daphnia

Acquisition- Daphnia range in size between 0.5 and 2.5 mm, which means that they are visible to naked eye. Dundjer cluster has its own Daphnia farm (a small bioassey) and they are also brought from various nearby lakes and rivers. The first group of these crustaceans was brought from Ohrid Lake. People usually buy Daphnia eggs, which can survive for a very long time in cold conditions. The price of a Daphnia egg equals the price of a chicken egg. (Daphnia reproduce both sexually and asexually).

All dead Daphnia are immediately replaced by the same number of new young Daphnia.

Life- In natural conditions, Daphnia, as a fish food, can survive for few days. In laboratory conditions, they can live for up to 45 days. They become sexually mature after two weeks.

Since biotoxin meter consists of 2 aquariums, one of them is the control tank in which natural conditions for Daphnia are simulated. When Daphnia in that aquarium die, the cause of their death is natural. When over 50% of Daphnia in the other aquarium die within 24 hours or less, it is concluded that the cause of their death is not natural.

Treatment of dead Daphnia- Since these crustaceans are very small, there is no need to take dead Daphnia out of the aquarium because algae and other planctons that Daphnia use in their food chain are already located on the bottom of the aquarium so that died Daphnia will decompose and it will not affect the number of live Daphnia in any way.

The care of Daphnia- Since the work of biotoxin meter is fully automated and the software alone monitors the number, size and movability of Daphnia and graphically presents the state of Daphnia in real time, the care of Daphnia can be organized and programmed remotely, without the presence of people. There should only be one person to monitor the state of Daphnia on the Internet and check the bioassay from time to time in order to replace dead Daphnia with new ones, which takes about half an hour a week or fortnight.

SOCIAL UTILITY

Influence of biotoxin meter on improvement of the environment

The most significant advantage of biotoxin meter lies in its preventive role because it eliminates negative consequences of the lateness of standard methods for water quality testing. Why are standard methods running late? Because water is not continuously sampled 24 hours a day. Besides, these analyses require expensive imported equipment, expensive reagents, highly specialized trained people, and time. By the time we get the results of all these analyses, irregular water will have reached consumers (people, fish, bioworld), toxins will have entered our body, leading to poisoning, epidemics or a similar incident, which all costs a fortune. Biotoxin meter solves this problem in a quick, cheap and ecological manner.

Positive influence of biotoxin meter on ecology

Biotoxin meter is based on the use of the ecological Daphnia test. In its section dedicated to determination of the environment quality standards (Directive 2000/60/EC), the EU Water Framework Directive envisages the use of Daphnia as a biosensor with 100% certainty for the establishment of chemical standards in water quality monitoring.

Daphnia are highly sensitive to the presence of any toxins in water. If Daphnia can survive in water, such water is safe for people. If they die, that means that toxins are present in water because there is no such thing that is harmful to people and safe for Daphnia.

Influence of biotoxin meter on health protection

Thanks to its system of early detection and alarming, biotoxin meter enables the following:

• Prevention and protection of the population from endemic diseases caused by toxins in drinking water

• Prevention and protection of the population from certain carcinogenic constituents in the water

• Prevention and protection of the senior population from the accumulation of toxins, heavy metals in particular

• Control of the quality of water in transboundary rivers that may cause transboundary disputes

• Control of the quality of water in river basins where big polluters release untreated wastewater into rivers and cause occasional fish kills

• Use of Daphnia in biotoxin meter is the only possible way to detect polluters and nanowaste as a by-product of nanotechnologies

• Biotoxin meter is a kind of confirmation that there are no things on the planet that are more perfect than live organisms. The use of biotoxin meter is especially important in the cases of the cross-effect of toxins. Namely, certain allowed substances in water can be very harmful when mixed. Modern instruments can make a mistake in such cases, but Daphnia can’t.

Benefits from transparence and online 24-hour monitoring of water quality by means of biotoxin meter

• Satisfaction of the right of citizens to be informed on the quality of water they drink and the possibility of their participation in the decision-making process represent a significant contribution of biotoxin meter to socially responsible behavior toward limited natural resources, one of which is water.

• The concept of sustainable development implies harmonization of the economic growth with the environment protection and ecological sustainability, while biotoxin meter gives a significant contribution by offering an ecological principle in the perception of the problem of growth of the number of polluters, leading to the environment pollution as a result of the industrial growth.

• Support to activities aimed at ecological sustainability of the environment belongs to the corpus of socially responsible behavior.

• Educational influence on raising the citizens’ awareness of the need for constant, public and transparent monitoring of the quality of water and the possibility of their participation in the water quality management.

• Biotoxin meter significantly contributes to the revival of deserted industrial areas by determining which land is safe for use in agriculture.

Owing to the capacity for high-precision detection of the place of the origin of pollution, biotoxin meter contributes to resolving of the problems of river pollution causes.

FINANCIAL POTENTIAL

There is no instrument similar to biotoxin meter in Serbia. Analyses of the quality of water in water supply systems in Serbia show that water from 48% of these systems is microbiologically unsafe, while water from 34% of water supply systems is not physically and chemically safe. Since the number of settlements in Serbia exceeds 6,000 and that the share of rural water supply systems is quite big, we should expect a high demand for biotoxin meters.

The basic characteristics of the instrument are low price and high speed of work, online monitoring, cheap maintenance, mobility, as well as the broad range of use. The estimated price of the instrument is affordable in our economic conditions because the instrument’s hardware is very cheap since it is made of components that can be easily procured in the domestic market, while its software is developed by the people from the company. The price of biotoxin meter is about EUR 4,000, while its life depends on hardware components and is approximately 10 years. So far, the company has not sold any of biotoxin meters made, but it currently negotiates with several municipalities in the south of Serbia, which expressed interest in that instrument.

About EUR 2,000 have been invested in the development of this instrument to date and additional funds will be required for new tests and upgrades in the future. A team of four associates have been working on the development of biotoxin meter for a year and half. They have also visited surrounding countries in order to get as familiar as possible with the latest trends in the fields of control, monitoring and management of water quality. The team members attend occasional summer training courses at European water protection laboratories, with which research contacts are maintained (Graz University, Weimar University, Dresden University, Bochum University).

Market needs – What is expected after the transposition of the EU directives into our law is the growth of the interest of population, local authorities and water suppliers in ecological sustainability, the quality of water in particular, which will result in the demand for 50 instruments and the annual growth of sales by 10% prior to 2020.

Competition – Although the European Union has the Water Framework Directive, there is no systematic monitoring of the quality of water by means of online instruments, let alone biosensors, not even in Western Europe. Instead, everything is done sporadically. Over the last few years, some countries (Germany, Italy and France in particular) have started installing such instruments.

No other company in the markets of Serbia and surrounding countries produces biotoxin meters based on the use of Daphnia. Companies that are dominant in this field in the EU are Bbe Moldaenke from Germany and Belgian manufacturer of Daphnia test kits - MicroBioTests Inc. In Australia, such instruments are produced by the company TSE. The instrument made by Moldaenke (DaphTox II) is computerized and supports standard procedures, but its price is almost unaffordable for our and neighboring markets. The instrument DAPHTOXKIT F Magna is relatively simple, but requires much time to be spent by researchers and offers no sophisticated analyses. The company Hack-Lange in Europe does not have Daphnia-based toxin meters in its offer, while such instruments in the USA cost more than $15,000 a piece.

Potential- The potential of the indicator of toxicity by means of Daphnia is huge. The measurement results encourage constructors to construct toxin meters for their own needs. The number of tests around the world amounts to tens of thousands a year, with a tendency of rapid growth. Expensive existing equipment and a significant time that researchers spend on conducting an offline experiment encourage them to build their own instruments so that indirect competition can be transformed into direct competitors with time.

Market – Due to legislation and stricter norms, the markets of the EU and the USA are expected to be the most attractive, but penetration of these markets require significant funds. In the domestic market, the most attractive segment is testing of the toxicity of industrial wastewater, drinking water and public utility wastewater, as well as research laboratories. Public water management companies (rivers, lakes and accumulations), as well as organizers of high-risk events, can also become more attractive segments upon the transposition of the EU directives into Serbia’s law. Also, few thousand unregulated rural water supply systems may become an attractive market, but not before new regulations are adopted. Market trend is significantly affected by the EU Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC) in its section dedicated to determination of the quality of environment, recommending Daphnia test with the 100% certainty factory, while ISO 6341 standard provides the test procedure. In addition to legislative trends, there are also significant market trends that may affect the biotoxin meter sales:

§ Rapid growth of interest of the population, local authorities and water suppliers in ecological sustainability, the quality of drinking and river water in particular, as well as the influence of toxicity on the carcinogenic effect of drinking water;

§ Accidental cases of chemically unsafe drinking water and river water call for the constant control of water quality, with a tendency of making it available online and non-stop;

§ Increase of neurotoxins and nanotoxicity as a consequence of new nanotechnologies;

§ Growth of the number of laboratories interested in both instantaneous measurement of toxicity and researches utilizing biosensors;

§ Organizers of a growing number of high-risk events (sports, political, music), as well as counter-terrorist institutions, have the need for instantaneous indication of poisoned water.

The market for biotoxin meter can be divided into local market (Serbia), regional market (Southeast Europe – Balkan), the EU, and the USA. The local market can be divided into the following segments (applications and trends that will animate respective segments the most are listed in the brackets):

§ Industry (wastewater; legal, economical, technological),

§ Water supply systems and canals (drinking water, wastewater, water springs; demographical, economical, technological)

§ Research and teaching laboratories (all kinds of water; economical, technological, cultural),

§ Public water management companies (all kinds of water; demographical, technological, political-legal, social-cultural),

§ Organizers of high-risk events – security organizations – counter-terrorism (drinking water; legal, technological),

§ Local self-government – city and rural (drinking water, wastewater, surface water; demographical, technological, political-legal, social-cultural),

§ Insurance companies (all kinds of insured water; demographical, economical, political-legal),

§ Non-government organizations and individual researchers

The innovation team of Dundjer cluster is a member of the task force for water protection and, in addition to the delivery of biosensors, accompanying software and installation guides, it also offers the following services:

§ Installation of hardware for sensor and aquarium;

§ Training in the use of hardware;

§ Installation of aquarium with Daphnia colony (Daphnia Magna);

§ Training in how to grow Daphnia in laboratory conditions;

§ Installation, calibration and activation of accompanying software;

§ Training in the use of accompanying software;

§ Uploading the measurement results to the buyer’s Internet presentation;

§ Setting up a forum for interest groups on an Internet service;

§ Connecting user-partner to a VPN (Virtual Private Network);

§ Installation and calibration of instruments for special research measurements;

§ Training in European and national legislation in the field of water protection

Biotoxin meter won the first place in the category of innovative ideas in the group Medicine, Health and Ecology at NIT contest in 2010.

If biotoxin meter is your favorite for the innovative investment of the year, you can vote for this nominee on the official website Aurea 2011.

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