Submitted Abstract
Field deployable and portable automatic water samplers are common tools in hydrology. They allow the unattended collection of water samples at predetermined times or are triggered by external sensors, reducing personnel labour and costs. Designed in the eighties, the currently still commercialized samplers have a limited storage capacity (e.g. 24 samples) and collect large volumes of water (i.e. 500-1000 mL).The strategic objective of the present project is to design, prototype and test a new automatic water sampler that is fully able to manage high frequency sampling. Based on a preliminary study and prototype, we have proven that the new sampler is able to collect small-volume samples (2-40 mL) at high frequency. Moreover, our device has a high storage capacity (>800 samples).Our final goal is to identify and to convince a private company to manufacture and commercialize globally such a system through a licensing out. According to our current market understanding not only customers (mainly hydrologists, environmental monitoring agencies, wastewater treatment plants and drinking water firms), but also suppliers are about to change their sampling paradigms. Our POC study is geared to fill that technological gap, which is a key leverage point for the attractiveness of the prototype.