Remote environmental monitoring employing a potentiometric electronic tongue

Abstract

This work investigates the use of electronic tongues for environmental monitoring. Electronic tongues were based on arrays of potentiometric sensors plus a complex data processing by artificial neural networks and data transmission by radiofrequency. A first application, intended for a system simulating real conditions in surface water, performed a simultaneous monitoring of ammonium, potassium, sodium, chloride, and nitrate ions. The proposed system allowed us to assess the effect of natural biodegradation stages for these species. A second application was used to monitor concentrations of ammonium, potassium, and sodium in the ‘Ignacio Ramírez’ dam (Mexico). The electronic tongue used here allowed us to determine the content of the three cations in real water samples, although a high matrix effect was encountered for sodium determination. The implemented radio transmission worked robustly during all the experiments, thus demonstrating the viability of the proposed systems for automated remote applications.

Keywords:

• Electronic tongue
• Environmental monitoring
• Sensor array
• Potentiometric sensors
• Artificial neural networks

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Spain's Ministry of Education, Science and Sport, MECD (Madrid) through the project CTQ2004-08134, by CONACYT (Mexico) through the project 43553 and by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise (DIUE) from the Generalitat de Catalunya.