Products

The Safe Soil Tester™

Tech­no­logy for the rapid detec­tion of haz­ards from PAHs in soils, sed­i­ments and man-made ground.

Soil is a valu­able resource that per­forms a vari­ety of func­tions for man and the envir­on­ment. Nat­ural and man-made con­tam­in­a­tion of soils and sed­i­ments are poten­tial haz­ards to human and eco­sys­tem health. Risk-based legis­la­tion for the man­age­ment of land qual­ity is driv­ing the tech­no­logy for mon­it­or­ing and decision-making tools with applic­a­tions in the sur­vey, devel­op­ment and remedi­ation of con­tam­in­ated land.

The Safe Soil Tester™ is a low-cost field instru­ment for the rapid detec­tion of soil con­tam­in­a­tion that employs bio­lu­min­es­cent bac­teria and soil extrac­tion pro­ced­ures to tar­get organics.

Light pro­duced by the bioas­say organ­ism is quenched in the pres­ence of toxic ana­lytes, which provides an indir­ect meas­ure of bioavail­ab­il­ity and safety of the con­tam­in­at­ing PAHs in a soil. Bioas­say tech­no­lo­gies reflect more on the beha­viour of those ana­lytes under cer­tain soil phys­ical and chem­ical con­di­tions and whether they are likely to cause threats to eco­lo­gical or human health.

The devel­op­ment of the SS Tester is fuelled by the need for decision-making, using dia­gnostic tools to enable rapid, on-site assess­ment and mon­it­or­ing with the fol­low­ing benefits:

• Reduced cost and wait­ing time com­pared with labor­at­ory analysis.
• Real-time out­puts for cost-effective decision-making.
• Oper­a­tion of the port­able kits and instru­ment­a­tion on-site does not require spe­cial­ist skills.
• Single-use-only com­pon­ents reduces the like­li­hood of errors.
• Abil­ity to test dif­fer­ent media — soil, sed­i­ment, made ground.
• Audit­able trail: unique sample I.D. and geo-referencing.
• Remote com­mu­nic­a­tion and GIS interface.