Sensors and Actuators B 179 (2013) 282–286 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical j o ur nal homep a ge: www.elsevier.com/locate/snb Water toxicity evaluation in terms of bioassay with an Electronic Tongue Dmitry Kirsanov a,∗ , Olesia Zadorozhnaya a , Anatoly Krasheninnikov b , Natalia Komarova b , Alexander Popov b , Andrey Legin a a Chemistry Department, St. Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya nab. 7/9, Mendeleev Center, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia b Lumex, ZAO, pr. Obuhovskoy Oborony 70/2, 192029 St. Petersburg, Russia a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Available online 9 October 2012 Keywords: Electronic Tongue Bioassay Water toxicity a b s t r a c t A lot of various applications of the Electronic Tongue (ET) related to the detection and quantification of taste and flavour of different products were reported so far. For obvious reasons, one relies upon human perception and taste panel marks working with ET in this domain. However, there is an unusual, albeit wide, realm of perception-related analysis based on the “marks” produced by other biological species, besides human beings, from different mammals to microorganisms. Thus, a series of methodologies, which are based on an ample variety of species (e.g. Daphnia, algae, unicellular organisms, luminescent bacteria and many others) were applied for the evaluation and monitoring of water quality and detection of acute water toxicity. The present paper deals with the application of the potentiometric multisensor system for water toxicity estimation in terms of the bioassay with three living test organisms: Daphnia magna, Chlorella vulgaris and Paramecium caudatum. The prediction of water toxicity with relative errors 15–26% (depending on the test object) is possible using PLS (projection on latent structures) regression from the data obtained by potentiometric multisensor system. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Preface Though the research in the field of sensor arrays for liquid media analysis was conceived and launched by various authors in the late 80’s, for some years the research subject had no sound name. The term “taste sensor” once suggested by Japanese colleagues is obviously too restricted and does not describe a variety (if not the most) of applications of the sensor systems, e.g. we once started with the environmental issues and heavy metal’s detection that can hardly be attributed to taste. It was much later when the field got its name – Electronic Tongue (ET) – which is widely used since then. Together with one of the Editors of this volume (Prof. C. di Natale), I (AL) first heard it from Prof. A. D’Amico in Rome, in 1994. The term Electronic Tongue appeared being successful and became quite popular due to multiple applications, though some of them, like the one described below can hardly be carried out using biological counterpart of the ET. Some other applications of the artificial sensory systems are also unthinkable for any biolog- ical tongue, however the common principles of construction, data processing and, ultimately, analytical performance principles per- mit considering the Electronic Tongue a real functional analogue of the biological one. ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +7 812 328 28 35; fax: +7 812 328 28 35. E-mail address: d.kirsanov@gmail.com (D. Kirsanov). 1. Introduction Water supply companies worldwide employ on-line mon- itoring tools and early warning systems at all stages of the urban water cycle for intake protection, treatment operations and distribution systems. The main aim is improving responses to events (natural or artificial, accidental or deliberate) near to real-time, particularly, in drinking water systems. Most common water quality parameters usually include pH, chlorine, tempera- ture, flow and turbidity and are widely monitored using on-line instrumentation. Early warning systems are integrated systems consisting of monitoring instrument technology with an ability to analyse and interpret results in (quasi) real time. The goal of such systems is to identify contamination events in sufficient time to be able to safe- guard the public. Early warnings systems should provide a fast and accurate means to distinguish between normal variations, contam- ination events and differences in quality due to biochemical and physical processes. They should be able to detect any type of con- tamination events and ideally should be reliable, inexpensive and easily maintainable. Until recently, water quality monitoring was heavily based on spot sampling followed by instrumental analytical measurements to determine the type of pollutants and their concentrations. Along with certain advantages this procedure has got serious limitations. It is very doubtful that acceptable resolution both in space and in time may be achieved at reasonable cost using this approach. The 0925-4005/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2012.09.106