BENGALURU: A facility setup at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) can be a key in identifying the sources of water pollution and even assessing the efficiency of remediation methods.
The multi-instrument facility includes Quadrupole Inductively Couple Plasma Mass Spectrometer fitted with collision reaction cell (QQQ-ICP-MS), and an Inductively Couple Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometer with dual detection capability (ICP-OES).
This will aid in accurate and precise determination of concentration for metals and metalloids from 100 ppm to 10 ppt (9 orders of magnitude).
The facility can detect environmental toxins (viz. Cr, Fe, Ni, Cu, As, Se, Pb) upto 5 ppt.
The precise determination of major, minor, and trace elements concentrations are said to be key in environmental as well as geochemical research.
The facility will be an open access center for characterization of dissolved metals and metalloids for such researchers in India.
IISc is among the cluster of institutes that was awarded the ‘Fast Forward to SGD6: Acceptable and affordable water in secondary Indian cities (4WARD)’ project under its its Urban Water Systems programme. The project is meant to identify and better the water quality of tier two cities.
The other institutes are IIT Bombay, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and Amritha Vishwa Vidyapeetham.