Grant: Engage Grants Program

Lotek manufactures exceptionally small electronic wildlife tags that can be used on fish, marine mammals, andsea birds. These tags can include salinity sensors to log behaviour such as flying, diving, and to gaugemovement through fresh water, salt water, and brine. Lotek, like many other companies, checks salinity usingsimple conductivity sensors with external electrodes that can contact any seawater. However, Lotek has hit animpasse with their current sensor design.(1) Prolonged exposure to salt water corrodes electrodes and affects sensing levels. Costly solid gold electrodesminimize this effect in Lotek's existing tags.(2) Live specimens damage external electrodes. Pecking seabirds and microbial growth each decrease thelikelihood of recording consistent absolute salinity levels during a typical 1-10 year tag deployment.(3) Conductivity readings change with temperature, other environmental factors, and depending on how longthe sensor has been active.To address these problems, a new industrial-academic partnership between Lotek and the applicant will explorethe viability of other types of sensing based on more economical materials and lower operation voltages toaddress the challenge of producing better commercially viable salinity sensors.