CASE PhD in Microfluidic Systems for In-situ Environmental Monitoring

Optimised, Self-calibrating Microfluidic Systems for In-situ Environmental Monitoring

This project is co-funded and in collaboration with T.E.Laboratories (TelLab), a company that specializes in the monitoring and analysis of chemicals within a broad range of industries and environments. One of their achievements is the development of the Aquamonitrixtm, a system capable of the real time monitoring of water quality which can be used as an early warning pollution detection system. This system is based on microfluidic technology with integrated colorimetric chemical detection.

One of the challenges related to the ideal ‘deploy and forget’ paradigm of these systems is the long term maintenance and stability requirements. This project will therefore focus on the optimization of the microfluidic and colorimetric chemical detection system for both existing systems and new microfluidic designs developed in ongoing research projects. Using computational fluid dynamic simulations, a toolbox for optimal microfluidic system design will be devised. Also adaptive and self- monitoring/calibration technologies will be developed enabling reliable, long-term deployment in the field.