Determining phosphate levels in natural water using a novel electrochemical measurement device

Current measurement of the phosphorus level in natural water are based on the phosphomolybdenum blue (PMB) method. In this method, the phosphate and molybdate ion form 12-molybdophosphoric acid (12-MPA) which is reduced to yield intensely coloured PMB, and its intensity is correlated with the phosphate concentration using spectrophotometry. Despite its well-established sensitivity and selectivity to the phosphate ion, commercially available in situ portable measurement devices suffer from their large footprints and limited working time. This is mainly because the wet chemistry of the PMB method requires a constant supply of liquid reagents of which volume determines the footprint and working time of the device. Such limitations of the existing methods make it difficult to access the temporal and spatial information of the phosphorus level in natural water which is crucial in the control of eutrophication.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Park, Gee Hoon.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ian W. Hunter.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127729

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/127729