RESEARCH

Thesis 4

Photonics for Water Quality Monitoring: A Game-Changer Approach

Revolutionizing Water Monitoring with Photonics

Water: a critical yet threatened resource. It is essential for life and environmental sustainability, but fresh water is becoming increasingly scarce due to pollution, climate change, and rising demand. Domestic water will have to be more and more recycled water, and this poses new challenges in determining its safety. Not to mention the fragility of water distribution networks, which can be easily hacked.

Our research in the field:

  • Microfluidic photonic-based monitoring systems: leveraging on a combination of optical spectroscopy, surface plasmon resonance, and fluorescence techniques, we are developing a modular system to enable the fast, precise, continuous, real-time, and low-cost detection of several parameters that can compose an indicator of the water quality, such as turbidity, pH, pollutants (e.g., PFAS), bacterial contaminations (e.g., E. Coli), etc.
  • Light-based sanitization: development of UV/blue light sources for non-chemical antimicrobial actions.

Key technologies & expertise areas:

  • Photonics: design and development of innovative fiber-based devices.
  • Electronics: microprocessor-based control systems; wireless data transmission.
  • Computer Science: user-friendly dashboards.
  • Artificial Intelligence: data analysis & predictive modeling.

Possible activities and roles within:

Next-gen water quality monitoring: smart, real-time, and sustainable solutions

    • Innovation & Design: develop next-generation sensing systems for real-time water analysis – from the identification of the sensing approach to the design of the microfluidic circuit and of the controlling electronics.
    • Data Integration & AI: implement and validate AI-driven algorithms to enhance data processing & sensitivity and widen the deployment possibilities.
    • Industrial Integration & Technology Transfer: ensure compliance with regulatory standards, conduct extensive stress testing under real conditions to validate performance, longevity, and reliability.

Contribute to a project with high social & environmental impact while acquiring interdisciplinary expertise in photonic sensing, mechatronics, data analysis & AI.