Tame-Water has developed a solution for analysing the impact of micropollutants present in water (natural water, drinking water, wastewater, groundwater, etc.) on a complete ecosystem.
In concrete terms, Tame-Water's "Microecosystem Solution" makes it possible to analyse the impact of pollutants on the fauna and flora of the environment under study in a simple and rapid manner.
The objectives of this solution are to :
- measure water toxicity by observing the evolution of a representative microecosystem over time
- to provide a simple, rapid and reproducible analysis process;
- to be able to determine the risks and effects of pollutants and to define the actions that can be taken.
Benefits of Microecosystem Solution
Representative microecosystem
To carry out its analyses, Tame-Water uses a microecosystem made up of a set of living micro-organisms within a natural or artificial substrate. This is specifically selected to be representative of the water source to be analyzed, without pollution.
Simple and rapid
Currently, the assessment of the quality of a given environment and the influences of discharges are evaluated as follows:
- On individuals e.g. micro-organisms, animals, plants in contact with water samples. However, assessment on individuals gives little indication of the impact on the whole ecosystem.
- On complete ecosystems. However, measurement on complete ecosystems is difficult to implement. Analyses on complete environments require measurements of the impact of the discharge at each level of the population making up the ecosystem. This is particularly cumbersome and costly.
By using a representative microecosystem, Tame-Water makes it possible to analyse the toxicity of water in a simple and rapid manner by analyzing its evolution over a given time.
In situ
This innovative analysis is based on bringing this defined microecosystem into contact with the water to be analyzed. The latter is immersed in it for a defined period of time and its characteristics are then analyzed in the laboratory.
Patented solution
Microecosystem Solution is the subject of a joint University of Franche-Comté & Tame-Water patent.
Resources
Tame-Water carries out this in situ analysis in several steps:
- Creation of a representative natural or artificial microecosystem
- Bringing this microecosystem in a device into contact with the water body to be analyzed (drinking water, natural water, waste water, etc.)
- Evaluation of the state of the microecosystem after a defined period
- Comparison of the immersed microecosystem with the initial ecosystem
