Jean Zeid 06:56, February 19, 2024
Every morning, Jean Zeid delivers the best in terms of innovation. This Monday, February 19, he returns to the start-up Molluscan Eye which measures water quality using the state of health of marine animals.
It's time for Jean Zeid's Positive Initiatives, the chronicle of daily innovations. John, hello.
This morning, we are interested in water quality and oysters.
You remember I'm sure of these end-of-year holidays marked by bans on the sale of oysters for health reasons and many oyster farmers suffered from this situation. The problem is that water quality is monitored at a given moment, and not in real time.
This is precisely the idea of a start-up, Molluscan Eye, created in 2023 and based in Bordeaux and to study the quality of water, salty or fresh, it chose connected molluscs
Tell us about this company’s amazing process.
It should be noted that the technology deployed was developed after years of research in collaboration with electronic engineers, technology which actually measures the state of health of the animals and not directly the quality of the water.
To function, Molluscan-eye relies on non-invasive high-frequency valvometry, developed in 2006 at the University of Bordeaux.
It allows us to study the way the mollusc lives 24/7 by placing mini-electrodes on its valves to record its movements and stress.
In fact, the openings and closings of molluscs are governed by tide times. When water quality is altered, this rhythm is disrupted. An submerged electronic card collects the data and the data is processed by artificial intelligence to identify significant behaviors. The molluscs act abnormally. And Molluscan-eye can sound the alarm.
What does the detection of this stress in water measure?
According to Molluscan-eye, this connected valvometry can quickly detect silent pollution, those which are not yet visible and can amplify and have costly consequences. This can range from industrial pollution or signs of pathologies and therefore a risk of food poisoning for humans. Every day, an assessment of the quality of the aquatic environment is drawn up. This report is provided in the form of colored emoticons and trend curves in order to perceive the state of water quality at a glance.
What are the advantages of this system?
Near real-time analysis at low cost and reduced maintenance, all providing highly accurate results. The flaw is that it is an alert system and therefore no information on the nature or concentration of a pollutant for example.
More than 90 valvometers have already been installed around the world.