The safe drinking water act requires that public water supplies be disinfected and that EPA set standards and establish processes for treatment and distribution of disinfected water to ensure that no risk to human health occur. The EPA science advisory board has ranked pollutants like disinfection by products (DBPs) in drinking water as one of the highest health risks meriting EPA's attention. They result from the oxidation of organic matter that is present in the source water and have been shown to cause adverse health effects such as cancer and reproductive development disorders. Analysis for low level aldehydes is an expensive and labor intensive process and failure in not detecting the problem in time could result in a large number of people becoming exposed to potential harmful material. Based on preliminary studies, Lynntech, Inc., proposes to develop a monitoring device capable of detecting ppb levels of ozonation DBPs using our innovative conducting polymer technology. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop this technology into a dedicated instrument to monitor the amount of aldehyde DBPs generated in the ozonation of drinking water. It is envisaged that the monitoring system will be an inexpensive, pseudo real time, and easy to use.
A commercialization assessment has been made, indicating a high potential for successful commercialization of the proposed aldehyde monitor for drinking water. The factors favoring a successful commercialization include, both domestic and world markets are growing each year as ozone replaces chlorine as the main disinfectant for drinking water, the technology development is being driven by the end-user, and sales of the probe could generate millions of dollars in revenue each year.
