Grégoire Le Brun, PhD student, received the 2021 Ernest du Bois Prize for his research work carried out with Prof. Jean-Pierre Raskin (UCLouvain/ICTEAM).
The prestigious Ernest du Bois Prize (which amounts to 20.000 euro) is awarded annually by the King Baudouin Foundation to doctoral students whose work focuses on the challenges of water availability in the world.
Grégoire Le Brun's work consists in developing very accessible sensors that can be used by everyone (in industrialised areas or remote regions) to analyse water quality and thus reduce the health risks associated with the water cycle.
The team's research approach is multidisciplinary, in order to ensure that the developed technology :
- meets the need for water quality monitoring
- has a positive impact on society
- presents no risk of misuse.
To this end, paper is used as the base material for the sensors : paper is cheap, it makes the sensors energy passive and it has a relatively low impact on the environment.
This prize is a great asset in the pursuit of research towards the development of sensors usable in real conditions, namely by supporting the acquisition of research equipment for the team.
The research team is happy to share this good news with the scientific community in order to inform, raise awareness and even inspire other researchers on the central theme of water and, more generally, on the scientific methodology
put in place to develop sustainable sensors.
Contact details :
Grégoire Le Brun
Jean-Pierre Raskin