Introduction
Despite water contamination being one of the biggest threats to the public’s health, there are no easy ways to determine if one’s water is safe to drink. There is a strong need for a simple and automated device that can detect contaminants in one’s water in real-time just as there is for detecting smoke or carbon monoxide in the air. AquaAlert is leveraging advancements in electrochemical sensing and wireless technologies to create a smart device to monitor water safety in one’s home.
Problem
Currently there is no easy way to test the water in one’s home. You either have to:
- Take a sample send that to that lab and wait two weeks for the results or
- Use tiny paper test strips which are cumbersome and inaccurate
Municipalities test for contaminants but there are millions of miles of pipe between the water treatment plant and the tap in one’s kitchen.
- Lead pipe was not outlawed in the US until the1980s, which means half of the country homes (75 million) likely contain some lead plumping.
- There are 7.3 million lead service lines still in is existence, the line that connects the water main in the street to your home.
Solution
About a year and a half ago, I had just left GE, where I had been a product manager in their water business for 10 years and I was having a discussion with another one of the co-founders, Jim Silva, who had been with GE for 40 years at their Global Research center. It was the height of the Flint Water Crisis and we wondered if there was an easier way to test for lead in water. We scoured the academic literature and discovered there was a lot of being done with new sensing techniques but nothing was close to being commercialized. We zeroed in a technology that was simple but robust:
- It involves applying a voltage to a custom screen-printed electrode which attracts all of the heavy metals in solution onto the surface of the electrode.
- The voltage is reversed and the metals ions are stripped off the electrode.
- Each metal is stripped off at a certain voltage which can be measured and used to determine the concentration of that metal, which in our initial case if lead.
We then automated this process by building and integrating the hardware, software and sensors so it could be done with the push of a button. We then designed the initial form factor of the product and will shrink the hardware down to fit that form factor.
Below is our current working prototype. It involves three main components:
1) Printed circuit board
2) Custom Screen Printed Electrode
3) Product Design – two current versions
a. Pen design
b. Cup design
This video shows our prototype that uses square wave anodic stripping voltammetry to detect lead on a custom screen printed electrode:
Market Opportunity
Our target market is single family home owners in urban areas. We surveyed 350people within this target market in the US and we found there is high awareness, strong demand and a willingness and ability to pay:
- 77% are aware of lead contamination
- 73% find the concept appealing
- 47% intend to purchase this device for $100
In addition to lead, 300MM people primarily in Asia still use ground water that is contaminated with arsenic or fluoride. As we develop and scale this technology, we plan on targeting multiple contaminants across the globe to ensure access to safe drinking water for all as stated in the UN’s Goal 6.
Go to Market Strategy and Business Model
AquaAlert’s market strategy is two-pronged:
1) B2C: AquaAlert will initially sell its device online, with the goal of moving into retailers like Home Depot. Given the massive media attention created by Flint, the market is ripe for a smart device that will monitor water safety. We will leverage this heightened sense of awareness and implement a low-cost public relations and social media campaign.
2) B2B: Once the water leaves the plant utilities don’t have any insight on its quality. Crowd-sourced data from individual homes will allow cities to use artificial intelligence to spot trends and uncover potential hazards before they start and promote faster remediation.
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