« Completed Open Innovation Challenges

Contaminated Water Testing "Tool Kit"

Status: Completed

The quality of drinking water is a powerful environmental determinant of health. Assurance of drinking-water safety is the foundation for prevention and control of waterborne diseases. Contaminants that occur on a large scale or in the wake of a natural disaster are particularly problematic. See the WHO website for major water-related diseases and their causes.

Organic contaminants result from human activities and industrial pollution, such as dye wastes downstream from textile factories in Bangladesh or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from chemical plants. Inorganic pollutants include arsenic, manganese, or other metals or salts that can result from industries (e.g., mining) or may occur naturally.

The Challenge

To design a portable, easy-to-use analytical tool kit for testing water for major impurities that affect human and environmental health globally, with information and/or instructions for treatment method(s). The kit must be cost-effective for production (preferably locally) in developing regions.

Specifically, the tool kit must:

1. Detect biological (e.g., microbes, parasites, prions), organic, and inorganic contaminants; and,
2. Provide information for low-cost, effective water treatments or decontamination methods.

Criteria for Success

Must Haves:

The tool kit must be:

1. Effective – Accurately identifies specific water contaminants;
2. Legal – Meets relevant regulatory requirements;
3. Straightforward – Easy to understand and use;
4. Cost Effective – Relatively inexpensive to manufacture and use; and,
5. Portable

Nice to Haves:

• Green (e.g., environmentally-friendly, sustainable, reusable, recyclable)
• Minimal risks of human error (e.g., by simplification as much as possible)
• Universal application
• Local production potential
• Scalable
• Open source (i.e., no licensing required).

Chemists Without Borders has a team of experts and available funding to carry out implementation of viable proposed solutions to this problem.

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