Mercury detector

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed sensors that can instantly detect the presence of mercury at or below the drinking water standard set by the US Environmental Protection Agency, even when other metals are present in the solution.

‘Mercury poisoning remains a significant threat to human health, and global mercury emissions continue to rise from incineration of solid waste and the combustion of fossil fuels,’ said Gregory Tew, a professor of polymer science and engineering.

‘We used smart polymers to create inexpensive, portable and easy-to-use sensors that are a big improvement over current industrial approaches that use sophisticated equipment not suitable for field measurements.’

According to Prof Tew, mercury has a long lifetime in the atmosphere, which tends to spread the contamination across wide areas of land and water. To make the problem worse, bacteria can convert different forms of mercury into methyl mercury, adding this potent neurotoxin to the food chain.