Envirolab awarded grant to detect organic pollutants

Simon Mills and David Springer from Envirolab Group, Professor Michael Breadmore from University of Tasmania and Adam Gaudry on far right from KD Analytical Australia
Simon Mills and David Springer from Envirolab Group, Professor Michael Breadmore from University of Tasmania and Adam Gaudry on far right from KD Analytical Australia

Australian owned privately operating environment laboratory Envirolab has received a $2.8 million research grant to detect persistent organic pollutants.

The grant will be used to fund the development of new technological solutions in the detection of emerging contaminants, namely the field deployable detection of Perfluoroalkylated Substances (PFAS).

Envirolab said research has identified PFAS as persistent organic pollutants. International conventions have furthermore defined certain PFAS compounds, such as Perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS), Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorohexane sulphonate (PFHxS), as persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic to mammals.

Simon Mills, Group R&D Manager at Envirolab said PFAS will continue to be a source of environmental and community concern within Australia and globally.

“Our collaboration aims to produce a field deployable PFAS analyser to enable the “triage” of affected sites and potentially work in conjunction with remedial solutions to monitor efficacy in near real time,” Mr Mills said.

In announcing the news this week, David Springer, General Manager at Envirolab, added: “We are proud to be working alongside our Australian partners, KDAA and UTAS in such a significant project that will apply high quality research and lead us into complimentary areas of PFAS testing. The benefits to the scientific industry are certainly significant.”

The program is part of a business research collaboration under the Australian Government, who will be investing $34.5 million into 17 projects in this round of funding, which facilitates cooperation between industry and research institutions in the development of new technological solutions.

Envirolab, along with their partners, KD Analytical Australia (KDAA) and the University of Tasmania (UTAS) have been awarded over $2.8 million through the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre Projects (CRC-P) initiative.

 

 

 

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