Screen-Printed Electrodes Empower On-Site Water Environment Monitoring
2026-07-23
As China deepens water environment governance, demands for surface water inspections, wastewater discharge supervision, drinking water safety screening, and emergency monitoring for pollution incidents keep expanding. Traditional laboratory-based water quality testing involves cumbersome procedures and long turnaround times, failing to meet the requirements of mobile river patrols and rapid field screening scenarios. Featuring low cost, miniaturization, disposability and compatibility with portable instruments, screen-printed electrochemical electrodes (SPEs) are emerging as core sensing carriers for on-site rapid water quality detection.
In the water environment monitoring sector, screen-printed sensing electrodes support the measurement of multiple parameters. They enable rapid detection of heavy metals including lead, cadmium, copper and mercury, as well as nitrite, ammonia nitrogen, dissolved oxygen and other indicators. Portable analyzers integrated with screen-printed electrodes deliver test results on-site without complicated pre-treatment. These devices are widely adopted by ecological and environmental authorities for routine river patrols, regular supervision of sewage outlets, safety inspections at drinking water sources, and emergency sampling and analysis amid sudden water pollution incidents. They effectively address the limitations of conventional monitoring methods and drive the transformation of water quality monitoring from "fixed laboratory testing" to "all-region, real-time and on-site monitoring".
Industry analysis shows that the market for portable electrochemical water quality sensors maintains steady growth. Nevertheless, there remains a supply gap for high-performance, highly consistent and customizable domestically produced screen-printed electrodes. Technical barriers including electrode ink formulation, screen registration precision, substrate compatibility and electrochemical signal stability directly determine the accuracy and repeatability of water quality sensors, prompting numerous flexible printed electronics enterprises to ramp up research efforts.
Drawing on years of expertise in flexible printed electronics, Suzhou Menhow has continued to advance R&D on screen-printed electrodes and launched customized solutions tailored for rapid on-site water quality monitoring. Equipped with a Class 100,000 clean workshop and a complete set of precision printing and testing equipment, the company develops carbon-based electrodes, Ag/AgCl reference electrodes and multi-channel array electrodes. It optimizes electrode surface technologies for testing systems targeting heavy metals, ammonia nitrogen, dissolved oxygen and other substances to boost sensing sensitivity and anti-interference capacity against complex water matrices.