Argus is a living plant that continuously monitors water for heavy metal impurities, with nanosensors inside its leaves. These sensors, of the order 1-2nm, are injected inside the leaves and stay within the intercellular space. A living plant continuously samples water in the environment and any impurities that come along with it. Under normal conditions, these ‘in-vivo’ monitoring sensors produce a visible glow (fluorescence) as an indication of good water quality. When heavy impurities such as Lead/Pb2+ are in water, they are eventually taken up in the plant vasculature. These impurities come in contact with these nanosensors and turn off (or quench) their fluorescence of indicating the presence of toxicity in the environment. Such method of detecting heavy metal toxicity is real-time, showing a visible output within 15mins to 2 hours, in contrast to current lab methods where sample are shipped and total testing takes two weeks or longer.
This project is motivated by Flint water crisis, New Jersey school water problems, Austin’s recent water (Mar 2019) advisory and many more. Current trend shows that by the time impurities are usually found in residential or agricultural, it is too late and has previously proven to be fatal. This is because continuous, cheap or off-the-shelf monitoring methods along river beds don’t exist today. Irregularities in industrial waste management has led to depletion of water quality in rivers in many regions. We intend to take a participatory approach and demonstrate eventual pervasive applicability of living plants continuously sampling soil and water quality.
