Title: Team Xylem Top Five Finalist of Prestigious Global XPRIZE Competition
Date: 2015-06-02 10:15
Author: Xylem Analytics
Body Content:
BEVERLY, MA – (June 2, 2015) – Team Xylem is one of five teams that have just completed the final testing phase of the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE, a global competition to create pH sensor technology that will accurately measure ocean acidification.
Made up of employees from Xylem brands Aanderaa and YSI, and from Xylem Analytics headquarters, Team Xylem began the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE competition over a year ago with 18 other teams, all of them trying to develop affordable and accurate ocean pH sensor technology to monitor and measure ocean acidification – critical for determining ocean health.
Aanderaa and YSI collaborated on the project, leveraging their collective expertise in optical chemical sensors used in oceanography to create a pH sensing platform. The Xylem entry integrates Aanderaa sensor technology and YSI calibration and validation systems, with a new solid state opto-chemical sensor, or optode. It uses LED light sources and detectors tuned to the fluorescence of a pH indicator dye embedded in a sensing foil that interacts directly with the seawater. Any variation in ambient pH results in changes in the fluorescence of the indicator dye, which is then detected by the optics.
The Xylem solution is relatively small with low power requirements, and uses no reagents, consumables or moving parts, and offers very good stability. All of these features are critical for long unattended deployments on small platforms such as drifters, gliders, and autonomous underwater vehicles – which is the future of oceanographic monitoring.
Rising levels of atmospheric carbon are resulting in higher levels of ocean acidity, and even minute changes can have a profound effect on the health of ocean plant and animal life – like shellfish, fisheries and coral reefs –and ultimately impact the sustainability of our ocean ecosystems. The Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE was designed to incentivize the creation of breakthrough technologies to measure ocean acidification and provide critical data needed to better understand this threat to our oceans.
XPRIZE creates and manages high profile, large-scale competitions, incentivized with large prizes, to generate innovations that solve some of the world’s greatest technological challenges. The first XPRIZE competition was launched in 1996 as the Ansari XPRIZE for Suborbital Spaceflight, which encouraged teams to build private spaceships capable of carrying three people and flying two times within two weeks. Won in 2004 by astronaut Mike Melvill, this competition is credited with essentially launching the personal spaceflight industry.
Teams participating in the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE competed for $2 million in prizes across two categories: an accuracy prize, based on technological performance, and an affordability prize, based on cost and usability. To get this far in the competition, teams had to successfully put their sensors through a three-month test under controlled laboratory conditions at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California this past fall, followed by a 30-day field-performance test, simulating a coastal environment sensor deployment, at the Seattle Aquarium in February. The final phase of the competition, which was completed May 21, was a week-long ocean challenge 100 kilometers off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. The sensors were put through rigorous performance tests, while battling real-world pressure scenarios and depths of up to 3,000 meters below the surface.
“Getting to this point in the competition is really a validation of our expertise in sensor technology. It demonstrates the power within Analytics of cross-brand collaboration, and it exemplifies our expertise in the ocean space,” says Chris McIntire, Xylem SVP and President, Analytics and Treatment. “As an organization, we’re proud to have come this far in the competition. We went up against some world-class technology, and we were right there in the running. And that’s pretty exciting.”
Final decisions about the winning solution will be made once the data collected in Hawaii is analyzed and assessed, with the final winners being announced by XPRIZE in July 2015.
To learn more about Aanderaa and YSI, as well as the complete range of analytics products from Xylem, please visit www.xylemanalytics.com.
About XPRIZE
Founded in 1995, XPRIZE is the leading organization solving the world’s Grand Challenges by creating and managing large-scale, high-profile, incentivized prizes in five areas: Learning; Exploration; Energy & Environment; Global Development; and Life Sciences. Active prizes include the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE, the $15M Global Learning XPRIZE, the $10M Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE and the $2M Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE. For more information, visit www.xprize.org.
About Xylem Analytics
Xylem’s analytics businesses are leading manufacturers of premium field, portable, laboratory and online analytical instruments used in water and wastewater, environmental, food and beverage, pharmaceutical and life science applications. The company’s meters, sensors, analyzers and related consumables are used every day by thousands of end-users worldwide to analyze and control quality in countless applications where precise measurement is required. Xylem Analytics started with the core brands of WTW, SI Analytics, Aanderaa Data Instruments, Global Water Instrumentation, ebro and Bellingham + Stanley, and has grown through a series of successful acquisitions including OI Analytical, YSI and MJK Automation. www.xylemanalytics.com
About Xylem
Xylem (XYL) is a leading global water technology provider, enabling customers to transport, treat, test and efficiently use water in public utility, residential and commercial building services, industrial and agricultural settings. The company does business in more than 150 countries through a number of market-leading product brands, and its people bring broad applications expertise with a strong focus on finding local solutions to the world’s most challenging water and wastewater problems. Xylem is headquartered in Rye Brook, N.Y., with 2013 revenues of $3.8 billion and more than 12,500 employees worldwide. Xylem was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the last two years for advancing sustainable business practices and solutions worldwide.
The name Xylem is derived from classical Greek and is the tissue that transports water in plants, highlighting the engineering efficiency of our water-centric business by linking it with the best water transportation of all -- that which occurs in nature. For more information, please visit us at www.xyleminc.com.
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Contact:
Laura Brockway
laura.brockway@xyleminc.com
+1.978.778.1030
Luke Giroux
luke@LRGiroux.com
+1.860.280.1302