Remote environmental monitoring employing a potentiometric electronic tongue

This work investigates the use of electronic tongues for environmental monitoring. Electronic tongues were based on arrays of potentiometric sensors plus a complex data processing by artificial neural networks and data trmsmission by radiofrequency. A first application. in~ended for a system simulating real conditions in surface water, performed a simultaneous monitoring ofam~noniutn, potassium. sodium, chloride, and nitrate ions. The proposed system allowed us tot assess the effect of natural biodegradation stages for these species. A second application was used to monitor concentrations of ammonium, potassium, and sodium in the 'Ignacio Ramirez' dam (Mexico). The electronic tongue used here allowed us to determine the content of the. three cations in real water samples, although a high matrix effect was encountered for sodium determination. The implemented radio transmission worked robustly during all the experiments, thus demonstrating the viability of the proposed systems for automated remote applications.