pHenom · A cost effective, self-calibrating, low maintenance pH sensor for an integrated approach to monitoring sea and drinking water, facilitating improvements in ocean, animal and human health

ANB Sensors (ANB) is a company set up to develop the next generation of pH Sensors for oceanographic, source water andaquifer monitoring and water resource management applications. In a short period of time, ANB has won innovation awardsand grant funding and registered intellectual property (IP) (3 patents pending with a further 5 patents in the filing stage)covering new, fundamental pH sensor technology.The key failing of existing pH sensors is the short life and high maintenance costs of the sensors, which is a result ofreference electrode drift giving unreliable measurements. The impact of reference drift is that most current ISE sensorscannot be used for long duration monitoring, cannot be used autonomously in smart sensor networks and require frequent,labour intensive calibrations. The only solution to reference drift currently available is expensive manual calibration.ANB’s innovative pH sensor, the pHenom, is based on a voltammetric electrochemical technique, which utilises a pHresponding molecule bound within a solid-state matrix. This is combined with a novel means of verifying the performance ofthe pHenom’s reference electrode through an additional in-situ electrochemical measurement.For the first time, the pHenom sensor provides a pH sensor that is capable of smart, networked sensing allowing companiesand government funded agencies to use their scarce monitoring management resources more efficiently.ANB’s overall objective for this project, therefore, is to develop the pHenom technology to the point where it can be placedon the market as-soon-as-possible, through technology licensing and sales. To meet this objective, in this project ANB willdevelop and produce four commercial prototype sensor systems specifically tailored for the biggest pH sensor market, thewater monitoring and management industry. These commercial prototypes will be used to demonstrate the operationaladvantages of the pHenom technology to gain market acceptance.