Checklight's monitoring technology utilises non-pathogenic luminous marine bacteria as early-warning biosensors, positioned inside a number of monitoring stations at various points in the system. If the water is contaminated, the monitoring bacteria react by reducing emitted light, which immediately generates an automatic contamination alert. Checklight says that the bacteria are exceptionally sensitive to very low concentrations of a wide range of toxic chemical agents.
One benefit of Checklight's technology is that, rather than monitoring and analysing the changing values of various parameters, bacteria respond directly in real time to a wide range of dangerous contaminants by simply dimming or turning off the light, the company says.
The bacteria monitoring technology, which has been verified by the US EPA's Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) programme, is particularly suitable for densely populated, potentially high-risk US cities, such as New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, where it can significantly reduce the threats associated with terror attacks, as well as problems posed by equipment malfunctions and natural disasters.