Bacterial concentration detection using a portable embedded sensor system for environmental monitoring

The detection of bacterial concentration is important in different fields since high microbial contamination or the presence of particular pathogens can seriously endanger human health. The reference technique to measure bacterial concentration is Standard Plate Count (SPC) that, however, has long response times (24 to 72 hours) and is not suitable for automatic implementation. This paper presents a portable embedded system for bacterial concentration measurement based on Impedance Microbiology that is suitable for in-situ measurements and does not require trained personnel. The system has been tested with samples inoculated with different concentrations ot Escherichia cott and its response correlates very well (R
²
= 0.9185) with results from SPC.