Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The requested equipment is a fully automated simultaneous photometric and electrochemical discrete analyzer (PEDA), with a robotic sampling arm for high throughput measurement of various parameters in water and wastewater (WW). The proposed equipment will be of immense value to advance the research programs of several researchers across faculties at Ryerson (RU) whose research requires analysis of wet chemistries. The proposed equipment offers low reagent use, low waste generation and true unattended operation. The robotic sampling arm aspirates and dispenses precise quantities of the sample (in µL) and reagents in discrete reaction wells for incubation over a pre-programmed period, emulating the manual colorimetric methods. The appealing characteristics of the proposed equipment, which is computer-controlled, include automatic dilution and preparation of standards and ability to run many different chemistry tests from each sample in the same run. The proposed equipment will serve three main purposes: (a) rapid and automated measurement of key water and WW parameters for monitoring bioprocesses and scalable bioprocess development for municipal and industrial WW treatment and biosolids management technologies, (b) enable essential investigations into effects of various operating and environmental conditions on the performance of key functional organisms in bioreactor-systems, and (c) validate developed bioengineering technologies. The requested fully automated PEDA will be installed in the newly established innovative Water Research and Resource Recovery lab - WR3 to support various NSERC funded research programs as well as funded projects in water and WW engineering, green technologies, resource recovery from WW, biosolids and bioenergy, urban infrastructure, biogeochemical and soil science applications, and forestry among others. Users at RU will be using the PEDA on a high frequency basis, training at least 25 HQP per year, validating the need and urgency of the fully automated wet chemistry analyzer system. The ability to use the fully automated PEDA will allow high throughput, rapid, and accurate testing, in parallel with liberating HQP from tiresome and monotonous tasks, which will vastly improve the performance of experiments required for validation of biotechnologies and environmental analysis. Availability of this equipment will define new objectives in present and future projects that can lead to ground-breaking research in developing novel microbial processes, resynthesis and recovery of high-value products, patentable, commercialization-ready modular water and WW treatment systems for industrial applications, and for retrofitting ?existing plants. In addition, the in-house availability of PEDA will facilitate HQP training on cutting-edge bioprocessing techniques that are presently commonplace in many scientific sectors including industrial biotechnology, environmental technology, and bioenergy.