Nitrates, heavy metals and PPCPs (pharmaceutical and personal care products) all have the potential to cause damage to Ireland’s environment. Dr Ber Alcock, in her project, aims to develop three sensors to detect the presence of each of these groups of pollutants, and, thereby, to facilitate remediation efforts where required.
Ber has spent her entire scientific career to date in NUI Maynooth. She graduated with a degree in Chemistry in 2002, then went on to do a PhD, working with staff member, Dr Carmel Breslin. Following her PhD there was post-doc research, working again with Dr Breslin, but also now with Professor John Lowry, Chair of Chemistry.
To set up her own research group was one of Ber’s dreams, and when she heard of these awards, this was one of the main attractions, as well as securing long term funding.
“I like being able to do my own thing,” said Ber. “I think these awards are brilliant because you have your five years contract, and you have the opportunity to take in post-grads as well, which a lot of the longer term contracts don’t do. With those you tend to have to find external funding for any post-grads that you want to set up a group with. This had it all in one package, which was prefect really.”
Ber developed three projects that she felt would be suitable for funding with one project for herself, and one for each of two post-grads that she planned to take on.
The three areas were: nitrate sensing and nitrate remediation; heavy metal sensing and remediation and PPCP sensing and remediation. The common thread between all three was that they were focused on conducting polymers, materials that Ber had done a lot of research on, and which could be used to ‘sense’ all the pollutants in question.
She chose nitrates, because it is such a big issue in Ireland, given the large agricultural community here. The problem stems from the practice of spreading animals wastes – which contain nitrates in high concentrations – on land to improve crops and pastures.
Nitrates can cause serious problems when they end up in groundwater or surface water by causing increased growth of algae, and eutrophication of water systems. The drop in oxygen that comes with the presence of nitrates can lead to fish kills.
These pollutants can also affect humans. For example, when nitrates in our drinking water are metabolised in the stomach this can lead to the formation of nitrous amines, which are thought to be carcinogenic. Furthermore, in human infants nitrates can be absorbed into haemoglobin causing the ‘blue baby syndrome’ - which can be fatal.
Heavy metals, meanwhile, such as lead, zinc and copper can be very damaging in the environment. In Ireland these are found near old mines, such as the copper mine in Avoca Co Wicklow.The three sensors work by chemically trapping and holding the pollutant, rendering it harmless, or disposing of it in some way. The sensors should be of great interest to drug companies, cosmetic firms, water analysis companies, and those in the agricultural sector.
Ber described what she would hope to achieve at the end of the five years of EPA funding. “Scientifically, I want those three sensors to work. The preliminary results would suggest that they are going to work, but hopefully we will have developed them to a certain stage that we will get a patent out of them – commercialise them.”
