This project aims to develop a portable kinetic chromogenic on-site test assay for rapid and accurate measurement of bacterial load in heavily contaminated water.

UK waterways face significant pollution with one key contributor being untreated sewage discharges often through storm overflows. This can lead to serious health issues for local swimmers, environmental damage to the ecosystem and losses for the economy via closed bathing spots and fisheries. While new regulation mandates all discharge points to be continuously monitored, current water quality testing methods for faecal pathogens rely on laboratory analysis via bacteria cultures which requires highly trained technicians and takes several days until results are available. Furthermore, not all pathogens can be detected leading to potential health risks. This project aims to use the Bidwell Brook in the River Dart catchment as a 'living laboratory' to develop and validate BactiQuick: a novel comprehensive and portable pathogen test device for rapid on-site bacterial water analysis giving results within 15 minutes. Furthermore, the project develops a smartphone app augmenting the test results with GPS data and pictures. Combined with the high-resolution flow and chemical analysis data to be collected in this project this allows the development and validation of a predictive model providing the local community with an early warning system. This AI-based sysem could be developed into a UK-wide early warning system for river catchment pollution. This will not only allow water utilities to comply with regulation and react quickly but with affordable cost/test it also allows citizen scientist and community interest groups to draw and analyse samples and contribute to the overall dataset.

Bathing water quality assessment is crucial for public health and environmental protection, but current culture-based approaches suffer from significant limitations, including time-consuming processes, sample transportation and delayed results. Our proposal seeks to advance our novel water testing device (Bacterisk+) that addresses these limitations, offering near real-time water quality assessment through an autonomous water sampling and testing device. Water sampling is critically important for ensuring safety at bathing water sites of which there are 149 such sites across Devon and Cornwall alone. Undertaking the testing is a major task and only occurs on a weekly basis, providing very low resolution data. Coastal sewage pollution, in particular at bathing water sites, has attracted considerable publicity and is of major concern for human and environmental health as well as significant economic costs. The source of much coastal sewage pollution is likely to be from combined sewage overflows (CSOs) during heavy rainfall. The vast majority of sewage passing through the sewage treatment system, when CSOs are not utilised, is well treated. Use of CSOs is episodic and driven by rainfall, making infrequent water quality testing unreliable in accurately indicating when waters are safe to swim. The proposed project, utilising the expertise at Molendotech for microbiology and assay development with the autonomy expertise at the University of Plymouth, will develop a Marine Autonomous Remote Sampler (MARS) that will interface our proven Bacterisk+ technology with an autonomous water collection system allowing water collection from the water column at 3 water depths, from near the seabed to the surface. Water will be automatically analysed by the BacterisK+ system and the data transmitted to a shore station using Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). BacterisK+ technology takes approximately 30 minutes to analyse a sample after collection. The system would allow water samples to be collected as frequently as every 30 minutes, providing near real-time analysis of water quality. Water sampling frequency would be programmable by the user. The device to be produced in this project will autonomously collect water samples, process the samples and the digital data transmitted to a shore station via the GSM system. During routine operations data would be gathered autonomously thereby significantly reducing Carbon emissions, in comparison to a vessel based or manual sampling regime. The development of the autonomous water sampling and testing device in this project will therefore address major themes of marine autonomy, clean maritime and digital ocean technologies.

During the COVID-19 pandemic shortage of labour to harvest and process crops led to a decrease in food supply when demand was increased for fresh produce as consumers increased their intake of fresh fruits and vegetables. Speeding up food delivery to supermarkets thus becomes critical at times of crisis to avoid food shortages. Food safety testing of produce is mandatory but current bacterial culture-based testing is time-consuming (2-5 days) and all tested products must be stored while waiting for test results before being released to supermarkets. This delay not only slows supply of food to retailers and shortens shelf life, but storing produce requires warehouse space, additional packaging and cooling and thus additional energy, which add significantly to the growers costs and the carbon footprint. Molendotech, an innovation company that specialises in assay development, has developed a fast test for pathogen identification in products and processing facilities that gives results within a time frame (~5 hours) that overcomes the need for extended storage of produce thus reducing costs, increasing shelf life and saving energy use. We have developed assays for common food pathogens including E.coli and Salmonella and it is designed to be used on site at farms by non-specialist staff. In this project, we will work with food growers to validate our novel assay technology on site at their farms. By providing test results quickly, there will be no need for prolonged storage of produce and batches of crops can be sent to supermarkets without delay. This project will allow us to further develop and improve our technology to produce a prototype kit that can be used widely by food growers. In crops, bacteria often grow in protective layers or biofilms that can adhere to leaves. Food processing offers ideal conditions for biofilm formation and they may contain pathogens such as E. coli and Salmonella. If food comes into contact with these biofilms, contamination may occur and consumers may become ill by eating contaminated food. Biofilms can induce forms that are difficult to culture and detect by current methods. In this project we will work with biofilm experts at Southampton university to validate that such biofilms do not interfere with our assay and that our assay technology can detect bacterial biofilms as this is important for the food market. At the end of this project we shall understand how our technology can test food produce quickly on site and allow growers to release food batches quickly to supermarkets. This will not only save time, money and energy use by the growers but alleviate a critical choke point in the food supply chain and thereby help build resilience into the UK food chain