Biosensor tests using bioluminescent bacteria have been in use for more than 30 years and their capability in detecting toxic substances is well understood. They use the principle that certain strains of bacteria emit light when healthy. When they are exposed to toxic substances, the amount of light emitted reduces. The greater the toxicity of the sample, the lower the light emitted. Measuring changes in light between healthy bacteria and bacteria exposed to toxic substances will therefore indicate the presence of a toxin in a sample.
Numerous independent, peer reviewed studies have demonstrated the toxicity test results have a a high degree of correlation with conventional bioassay tests such as fish, daphnia and shrimp. As a result, waste water treatment plants use toxicity tests to help ensure compliance with water treatment effluent permits, they measure toxicity in influent streams, determine treatment efficiency in industrial and municipal treatment plants and monitor processes from the raw influent to the final effluent.
KEY BENEFITS
» Biological early warning system sensitive to more than 3,500 simple and complex chemicals allows the protection of drinking water supplies from accidental or deliberate contamination.
» Test results highly correlated with other widely accepted toxicity test methods helps to ensure compliance with regulatory and effluent permit standards in wastewater pplications.
Applications
- Drilling fluids and drilling muds
- Mining, wastewater, soil and water
- Industrial effluents
- Industrial process water
- Marine water
- Medical/pharmaceutical products
- Food packaging materials
- Personal care and household chemical analysis
- Sediments
- Storm water runoff
- Solid phase materials
- Food processing water
Product
Laboratory Microtox LX
Microtox LX is a biosensor-based measurement system that uses bioluminescence technology to monitor for either accidental or deliberate contamination of both water supplies and waste water. With over 2,900 instruments sold worldwide, the Microtox toxicity test system is the industry standard for rapid toxicity screening and analysis.
Microtox rapid toxicity detection is an in vitro test system that uses bioluminescent bacteria for the detection of toxicity in water and is used as a screening system to detect the relative toxicity of a sample.
Applications include the testing of samples containing biological toxins, industrial effluent, industrial process waters, municipal effluent, drinking water, ecotoxicological samples, hazardous waste, soil, sediments, storm water and medical products for bio reactivity.
portable Microtox FX
Microtox FX is a simple, rapid, extremely responsive, portable water quality test system. The Microtox FX instrument has a combined detection capability that provides a very sensitive and rapid test to detect two of the most probable classes of agents, pathogens and toxic chemicals that may accidently or intentionally contaminate drinking water or wastewater.
Microtox FX’s acute toxicity and ATP detection capabilities make it the ideal instrument for rapidly and accurately assessing if the quality of drinking water, from the source to the tap, has been affected by an incident.
Designed for acute toxicity screening and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) testing, Microtox FX uses bioluminescence technology to screen for contamination in instances of drinking water emergencies and chemical spills into water systems. Microtox FX is a portable toxicity analyser.
online Microtox CTM
Modern Water’s new Microtox CTM is a site-based, broad range, Continuous Toxicity Monitor (CTM). It continuously measures the chemical toxicity of a water source, giving instant indication of water health.Microtox CTM is a fully automatic instrument that offers a 4-week, autonomous operating cycle and requires a low level of skill for both operation and maintenance.
Microtox CTM makes fully automatic, continuous, on-line testing a reality. It has broad range detection capabilities that provide rapid early warning of contamination by several thousand known chemicals. This enables containment measures to be actioned in time to protect against serious contamination events.
A major advantage over most analytical methods is that
Microtox CTM is able to detect contaminants whether or not there is prior knowledge of the potential source or nature of contamination. Other on-line toxicity monitors take intermittent samples and provide only one test result in typically 15-30 minutes. This means that brief events may be missed and leads to a high incidence of false alarms. Microtox CTM takes one measurement every ten seconds, significantly reducing the risk of false alarms.