Title: Quantitative assessment of water disinfectant by-products using wireless biosensor networks

Chlorination is one of the common and inexpensive methods to treat water against biofuel, such as bacteria and other microorganisms. However, chlorine may form Disinfection By-Products (DBPs), such as trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, which are potent carcinogenic substances even at low concentrations. Hence, it is mandatory to examine the DBP in drinking water. Unfortunately, the present sampling systems for DBP, such as chromatography or spectroscopy, require expensive equipments, skilled personnel, and laborious experiments that are not suitable for common use.

These difficulties can be overcome by new wireless biosensor networks, which are networks composed of small sensing units capable to measure the state of the water and wirelessly transmit it to a control unit. Potentially, the reduced size of these networks makes it possible to sample the state of water at locations and with accuracy previously unreachable. Therefore, wireless biosensors have a great potentiality to improve the monitoring and control of water DBP, with substantial benefits not only for the water production and distribution, but also for the human health and environment.

In this master thesis project, we propose to investigate wireless biosensor networks for the quantitative assessment of water DBPs using wireless biosensor networks. The availability of exiting bio sensors, new mathematical modeling of the DBP measurements, optimized detection of sampled information, and the wireless transmission characteristics will be investigated. This is an exciting interdisciplinary project between the Environmental Microbiology Group, School of Biotechnology, KTH and Automatic Control Lab, Electrical Engineering and ACCESS Linnaeus Center, KTH.

Those who are interested to work in an interdisciplinary field and learn new techniques and broaden the knowledge are encouraged to apply. Any Master’s student who has good interest in health care, electronics and wireless networks is welcome. Biology, electrical engineering, engineering physics, and computer sciences students with strong mathematical knowledge are encouraged to contact the contact persons below.

Starting time: from November 2011

Contact persons Gunaratna Kuttuva, Environmental Microbiology Group, KTH, gunar@biotech.kth.se Carlo Fischione, Automatic Control Lab, KTH, carlofi@kth.se