Cadmium Detector Project Overview

The surrounding areas of Duke Energy’s Buck Steam Station have unintentionally been affected with millions of tons of coal ash containing multiple toxic chemicals including Cadmium. The release of this ash has caused the water to become a health hazard with the potential to cause a wide range of symptoms: flu-like symptoms, kidney damage, fragile bones, and possibly death through prolonged exposure. To minimize the damage caused by Cadmium in water both locally and globally, our 2012 team created several heavy metal detectors, but in 2013 we decided to concentrate on the Cadmium detector. The detector responds to the presence of Cadmium with green fluorescence. In 2014, the team worked to increase the sensitivity levels of our detector. Our detector needed to be able to respond to Cadmium at low enough levels that the detection would be useful and the presence of cadmium would not already be apparent. This year, we completed the addition of the 2007 Cambridge team's sensitivity tuners to our detector. The sensitivity tuners amplify the signal received by the detector. At the end of last year, after adding the sensitivity tuners, we began to see indications of a peak at lower levels of Cadmium than we had previously thought. To define that peak, we used test points that were closer together. We discovered a peak of fluorescence and identified our detection points.

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