Portable Electrochemical Analytical Platform for Swift Evaluation of Polluted Water Quality for Precision Agriculture

Water pollution is a major ecological and public health problem in predominantly agricultural country by pesticides. Traditional methods for assessing water quality and specific substances such as organic compounds, carbides, pesticides, and metals, rely on composition analyzers or liquid chromatography in specialized laboratories. These methods, though accurate, are often unable to provide results in real time and are not widely used due to their requirement for highly skilled operators and expensive equipment. This study introduces a miniaturized, portable electrochemical analyzer that is capable of rapidly detecting substance concentrations in electrolytes and river on the basis of cyclic voltammetry measurements. The performance of this self-developed electrochemical analyzer matches that of standard commercial instruments, with the added benefit of being able to identify and analyze high-concentration electrolytes, such as 0.03 M and 0.05 M KCN3/4, which commercial instruments may not discern due to their requirement for higher potential voltages. Additionally, electrodes coated with shell-less molecularly imprinted polymers exhibited a 1.5 to 2-fold increase in current variation compared with uncoated electrodes, particularly with chlorpyrifos detection, underscoring the effectiveness of the designed MIPs in identifying organophosphate pesticides in river water. The addition of MIPs to electrodes enhances conductivity and sensitivity. This analyzer's portability, ease of use, low cost, and expandable functionality make it a valuable tool for environmental monitoring. Future integration of a GPS module could enable the analyzer to provide real-time concentration data and location information for pollutants in rivers such as the Mekong; especially for the pesticide detection and conducting distribution map for smart agriculture application.