Manual tests for safe drinking water can be slow and error-prone. A team of academics is trying to change that
Like many people, Alexander Patto was keen to move away from academia after his PhD. He wanted a job that would have a tangible impact on the world, so when an opportunity came up to investigate water testing in the developing world, he jumped at the chance. Together with a team of academics from the University of Cambridge, Patto, a biologist, worked on a simple way of testing bacterial contamination in drinking water.
“The current systems are very slow and complex,” says Patto. To get a robust result “there is a lot of manual sampling”, which can also lead to “a lot of human error”, he says. “What we’re trying to do is make it very, very simple, so that anybody can do a test, regardless of their skillset [and the] resources available, and still get a result that is scientifically robust.”
The manufacturing industry has always been directly impacted by the technological advancements of its time. From the advent of coal and steam as new sources of energy, the cotton gin and its impact on cloth manufacturers, and the assembly line for Ford, each has altered and benefitted the industry. As we enter Industry 4.0, a new batch of technology is shaping how, and how fast, we make goods. 3D printing is one such technology that is providing tangible benefits to those who implement it.
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