In line river monitoring of nitrate concentration by means of a Wireless Sensor Network with energy harvesting

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are highly promising tools in the advanced automation of chemical analysis processes. This work helps to prove how they can take advantage of this technology. Two main drawbacks have been addressed in order to test this applicability: the availability of suitable transducers and the energy supply. The development and deployment of a WSN for the continuous in-line monitoring of the content of nitrates in a real scenario (River Tuna, Valencia, Eastern Spain) are then presented. In this application an ion selective electrode (ISE) transducer and an energy harvesting system based on a solar panel have been used. The proposed system has been deployed along a certain stretch of the river, its operation being studied and validated. The results obtained not only show WSN applicability to analytical chemical environments, but also highlight all the advantages offered by this novel technology, namely: easy deployment, friendly use, and the fact that the great amount of data obtained allows for new possibilities for both spatial and temporal analysis of chemical species. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.