Prof. Ala’aldeen Al-Halhouli from the School of Applied Sciences (SATS) and Dr. Mohammad Khanfar from the School of Medical Applied Sciences (SAMS),  at the German Jordanian University (GJU) have published a life changing scientific paper in the leading international peer-reviewed open access journal on the science and technology of sensors and biosensors- "Sensors".

The paper entitled “Low Cost Lab on Chip for the Colorimetric Detection of Nitrate in Mineral Water Products” was funded by Abdul Hameed Shoman Scientific Research Support Fund.

The research comes in response to the importance of rapid diagnostics of water quality where in certain areas, wars and instability have left millions of people setting in refugee camps and dangerous regions without suitable infrastructure.

In this work, microfluidic testing chips and photometric setups are developed in cheap and portable way to detect nitrate concentrations in water. The performed test is designed to work according to the Griess procedure. Moreover, to make it simple and usable in areas of low resource settings, commercially available Arduino mega and liquid crystal display (LCD) shield are utilized to process and display results, respectively. For evaluation purposes, different local products of tap water, bottled drinking water, and home-filter treated water samples were tested using the developed setup.

Halhuli and Khanfar appreciated the financial and logistical support provided by Shoman Scientific Research Support Fund, besides the GJU’s support in providing the laboratories.