Commercial Services

Smart Water Research Centre offers a suite of application specific water testing capabilities

Toxicity Testing

• Bacterial cytotoxicity bioassays provide a measure of effluent quality and algal toxins
• Mammalian cellular toxicity assay, provides a measure of effluent quality
• Analysis of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs; including estrogens, androgens,glucocorticoid, thyroid and progestagenic) in water using highly sensitive in vitro bioassays.
• Artemia (brine shrimp) survival and hatchability assay, provides a measure of effluent quality
• Analysis of estrogens in water, including natural hormones (estradiol) and birth control pill(ethynylestradiol), using sensitive ELISA methods.
• Determination of vitellogenin (a biomarker of exposure to estrogenic endocrine disruptors) from Australian bass using a sensitive ELISA method
  
  

Environmental Chemistry

• Determination of general water qualityparameters, such as disinfectants (chlorine, chloramine, ozone), pH, hardness, inorganic ions and metals (fluoride, copper, manganese), and nutrients by spectrophotometric methods
• Quantification of chemical oxygen demand byspectrophotometric methods
• Quantification of fluoride and pH by electrochemical methods Accurate and high-throughput quantification of organic and inorganic carbon and nitrogen (Total Organic Carbon, Dissolved Organic Carbon, Dissolved Organic Nitrogen, Inorganic Carbon)
• Extraction and analysis of NDMA (disinfection by-products of chloramine treatment) in water method detection limit of 5 ng/L)
• Extraction of a wide range of organic compounds hormones, disinfection by-products, industrial compounds etc) by SPE (Solid Phase Extraction)
  
  

Microbiological Testing

• Monitoring of pathogens in water using both culture-based and molecular genetic approaches
• Detection of microbes in water using Fluorescent In Situ Hybridisation (FISH)
• Biofilm studies Validation of treatment technologies
• Filament identification in activated sludge
• Developing catchment specific databases used for microbial source tracking

• Smart Water Research Centre’s Dr Vicki Ross was recently awarded her PhD in psychology from the University of Queensland. Vicki’s research examined the impact of trust in authorities on public acceptance of recycled water, and involved developing a psychological model of the characteristics and drivers of trust and acceptance. The research comprised three large-scale Australian studies that tested the model across three different risk contexts (low, medium and high perceived risk).
  
  Analysis through path modelling showed that in all three contexts trust in the water authority was a significant predictor of acceptance of the water management scheme. Also across the three contexts, greater trust was associated with lower risk perceptions, which in turn produced greater acceptance. In the high perceived risk setting (the proposed indirect potable reuse scheme in Toowoomba), perceptions of risk had the strongest direct effect on acceptance of the scheme.
  
  The findings highlighted the importance of community engagement programs in establishing ongoing public support for water supply schemes. The results also demonstrate that establishing trusting relationships between communities and water authorities is crucial to public acceptance of higher perceived risk schemes such as indirect potable reuse.

   

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