Humidity is one of the most controlled and most monitored aspects
nowadays owing to its great importance in a whole range of industrial
processes or in areas such as food monitoring, air quality, biomedicine
or chemistry.
"Yet, problems remain in terms of measuring and monitoring it in
specific situations such as environments where the humidity level is
very high," said engineers Aitor Urrutia from Universidad PAblica de
Navarra (UPNA) in Spain in a university statement.
The proliferation of bacteria in such environments where the humidity is
very high is common and this leads to the formation of "biofilms" which
are ecosystems made up of these microorganisms attached to a surface.
This leads to the problem known as biofouling which causes "the
deterioration of many materials and devices, affects their performance
and cuts their service lifetimes".
"Right now, the costs arising out of biofouling are very high mainly
because of the maintenance work or replacement of equipment," Urrutia
added.
Urrutia wrote about building new humidity sensors that would have
antibacterial properties for applications that function in environments
where the humidity is high and which are conducive to bacterial growth,
and thus prevent the creation of biofilms and overcome biofouling.
To develop humidity sensors, Urrutia based himself on the combination of
the latest advances in nanotechnology over new fibre optic
configurations.
"That way, the new sensors developed have longer service lifetimes and perform better," he noted.
The new humidity sensors developed could be integrated into a wide
variety of sectors, such as health centres and hospitals to monitor
human respiration, among other applications.
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