EGU24-21191, updated on 11 Mar 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-21191
EGU General Assembly 2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Novel Soil Decomposition Sensor: Field Studies and Design Improvements

Madhur Atreya1, Taylor Sharpe1, Shangshi Liu2, Rebecca Killick3, Mengyi Gong3, Kelly Verhaalen4, Anupam Gopalakrishnan1, Noah Smock1, Isabella Sarralde1, Mac Bean4, Jessica Davies3, John Quinton3, Richard Bardgett2, Jason Neff1, Evan Thomas1, and Greg Whiting1
Madhur Atreya et al.
  • 1University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
  • 2The University of Manchester, UK
  • 3Lancaster University, UK
  • 4McCain Foods, USA

 

The sensing of soil microbial and enzymatic activity continues to be a challenge, as current techniques are typically limited to the laboratory, and are time and labor intensive. In addition, such offsite assessments are not necessarily reflective of in situ bio-chemical-physical processes. We previously presented a novel printed decomposition sensor comprising a poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) and carbon composite material, wherein the sensor response correlated with the microbial activity in incubated soils [1]. In field trials carried out in the Yorkshire Dales (UK) these devices showed a clear correlation with measured soil microbial biomass carbon. These sensors consisted of a single fuse-like resistive element and as such were subject to stochastic effects in soil, requiring large numbers of devices to be used in order to address variability in field measurements. Here, we present a novel hardware solution to mitigate these stochastic effects by parallelizing multiple printed sensing elements on custom printed circuit boards (PCBs). The first instantiation of this approach showed to be effective at smoothing out sensor response in potato farms in the Upper Midwest region of the United States. In order to further shape the signal response of these decomposition sensors, we explored different parallel topologies by varying the number of sensing elements, element width, and element length. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these different topologies.


[1] Atreya, M.; Desousa, S.; Kauzya, J.; Williams, E.; Hayes, A.; Dikshit, K.; Nielson, J.; Palmgren, A.; Khorchidian, S.; Liu, S.; Gopalakrishnan, A.; Bihar, E.; Bruns, C. J.; Bardgett, R.; Quinton, J. N.; Davies, J.; Neff, J. C.; Whiting, G. L. A Transient Printed Soil Decomposition Sensor Based on a Biopolymer Composite Conductor. Adv. Sci. 2022, 2205785, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202205785.

How to cite: Atreya, M., Sharpe, T., Liu, S., Killick, R., Gong, M., Verhaalen, K., Gopalakrishnan, A., Smock, N., Sarralde, I., Bean, M., Davies, J., Quinton, J., Bardgett, R., Neff, J., Thomas, E., and Whiting, G.: Novel Soil Decomposition Sensor: Field Studies and Design Improvements, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-21191, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-21191, 2024.