Lincoln Environmental Research (LER) in New Zealand has developed an innovative monitoring system incorporating Mott's porous metal stainless steel plates
The 'Spydia' was designed by LER's Hamilton team and is focused on water and contaminant transport and transformation processes between the bottom of the root zone and the top of the water table.
This will enable them a better understanding of the fate of nutrients lost in pastoral land.
The Spydia is comprised of a 2.5m diameter round steel caisson, 6m long with 15 legs (sampling plates) around it.
The plates at the end of these legs are made of Mott's porous metal and help sample the water as it moves down through the profile.
The design incorporates 23 plates that are 25cm and 90cm long.
This allows sampling over a large area that helps pick up on spatial variations.
Greg Barkle (Aqualinc Research ) who leads LER's Spydia work says: "With the help of these plates, we can measure the flow rate and contaminant concentration of the water that moves down through the profile, helping us to understand the timing of nitrate contamination and the impact in the groundwater that you'd expect to see as a result of land-use changes".
Mott's porous metal media is used in many applications that require a sturdy media that can provide flow control, filtration, distribution of flow, and controlled porosity in even the harshest environments.
The company's design teams are continually engineering porous metal components, sub-assemblies and finished products for applications in a wide variety of industries, including medical, pharmaceutical, chemical, petrochemical, instrumentation, environmental, food and beverage, semiconductor, energy and fuel cells.
Uniform porosity and pore size of Mott's porous metal products guarantees consistent performance.
The incredible strength and durability of Mott's porous metal makes it the perfect material for use as protective sheathes (for delicate sensors), or even as structural supports.
And no other media offers the level of integrity necessary for repeated cleaning and re-use that porous metal provides.
Finally, when the time comes to replace porous metal components, harmful wastes embedded in the media can be removed before the spent product is re-cycled.
