Modern Water Presents World's First Wastewater Monitor for COVID-19 at WWEM 2022

To listen to this interview, click here.

At this year’s Water, Wastewater and Environmental Monitoring (WWEM) conference in Telford, a number of awards were given out for excellence in various aspects of water monitoring. To learn a little more about their products, partnerships and why they came to WWEM, EnvirotechOnline took a walk around the exhibition floor to talk to some of the nominees. 

On the first day of the show, we spoke to Jon Shepherd, European Business Development Manager at Modern Water, about the world’s first real-time, on-line monitor for COVID-19 in wastewater, which was nominated for WWEM 2022’s Most Innovative Instrument, Product or Digital Solution. 

“So, Modern Water produces instruments and reagents for environmental measurements. We have real-time, on-line instruments as well as laboratory solutions, for trace metals, toxicity and others. As we move forward and speak to customers about their current application needs, we’re able to develop solutions.  

Before the pandemic, Modern Water were working with the Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland to design an instrument to measure E. coli and other bacteria using multiplex kits. When we hit 2020, we asked ourselves a question: could we minimise this technology to go from measuring very large bacteria down to viruses and fragments – or the spikes of a COVID-19 particle?  

The good news is that we’ve been able to do that! With our nominated monitor, we have the world’s first real-time, on-line system which measures COVID-19 at the inlet to wastewater works. So, we may be reducing testing and going back to our normal routines, we might want to wear masks, but we still need to know about spikes, the variants of COVID-19, how do we maximise resources, ventilators and so on. Using our Microtox technology for wastewater-based monitoring, we’re now able to do this.” 

Lastly, we discussed what Jon sees as the benefits of attending WWEM. 

“Well, WWEM is the industry-leading event in the UK for professionals working in the water and wastewater sphere to get together, learn, visit partners, to see exhibitors, to hear about the state of water industry. I think, with so many different exhibitors and end-customers here, there’s real ideas-generation, people are thinking about how new applications can be brought to life. Uniquely for me in this job, rather than just selling instruments from a manufacturer, we’re able to talk to customers, to work out business-needs and future applications that we can develop, to start new concepts for new solutions for customers.” 

In 2024, WWEM will return bigger and better, graduating to the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham. For information on exhibiting at WWEM 2024, click here.