www.metos.atWerksweg 107, 8160 Weiz, Austria | Tel.: ++43(0)3172-5521Fax: ++43(0)3172-552123 | e-mail: sales@metos.at

TURNING INFORMATION INTO PROFITS

- the mobile soil nutrient laboratory METOS NPK®

Integration of soil nutrient analyses to a single microchip

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How do you know if a field needs fertilizers? Wrong fertilizer applications leads to additional costs and environmental hazards, but there is currently no measurement equipment for simple and inexpensive on-site nutrient analysis. Pessl Instruments GmbH has developed a mobile soil nutrient analysis device based on modern Lab-on-a-chip technology. This integrates the functionality of a laboratory on a single microchip.

Why this technology? Are my plants hungry?The most important fertilizer is nitrate (NO ). Nitrate can be washed out easily by rain and can migrate to deeper layers of soil – the available amount of nitrate is therefore often hard to estimate and over- or undersupply of nutrients is the consequence. Other important plant nutrients are Potassium (K) Phosphate (P O ) and Ammonium (NH ). With the current technology, a soil sample has to be taken and has to be sent to a laboratory for nutrient analysis. In future, it will be sufficient to flush a soil sample with an extraction solution and do the analysis quickly in field with the Metos® NPK with this special microchip.The results are displayed in real time and you get an immediate response whether additional fertilizer is needed or not. With Metos® NPK you get on-site analyses of soil samples at low cost and without time delay. Metos® NPK measures concentrations of NO , NH , K and P O to provide this important support for your fertilization decisions. With this data, you can achieve environmental sustainable and economic use of valuable resources.

How does the technology work?The filtered sample solution is simply injected to a capillary to which a high electric voltage is applied. Many of the solved chemical compounds are electrically charged and therefore start to migrate in the electric field. Every molecule type migrates with an individual speed through the liquid medium, according to its molecule size and charge. The sample ingredients are separating and reach a detector one after another at different migration times. By this process, the concentration of each sample compound can be measured individually. This technology also works for on-site measure-ments in field conditions and can be operated by users without laboratory knowledge.

The measurement data is related to GPS coordinates and is sent via telecommunication to our web-cloud (www.fiedclimate.com), where it saved and can be accessed by several users.

Further on, the transfer of the data to machine-readable formats is under development, allowing the automatic site specific variable rate application with precision farm

machinery (e.g. fer-tilizer spreaders,

sprayer etc).

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TURNING INFORMATION INTO PROFITS

www.metos.atWerksweg 107, 8160 Weiz, Austria | Tel.: ++43(0)3172-5521Fax: ++43(0)3172-552123 | e-mail: sales@metos.at

On-site soil nutrient analysis

Special advantages:

• On-site analysis of soil samples• Analysis of the most important plant nutrients in a compact handheld device• Low costs per analysis in comparison to laboratory analysis • No time delay and high accuracy of the measurement results• Measurement data enables immediate reaction on fertilizer demand of the plant

Metos® NPK includes:• Metos® NPK soil nutrient analyser• Metos® NPK microchip• Data transfer to fieldclimate.com • Data visualization with geographic nutrient distribution

Measurement Sequence:• Soil sampling• Homogenization, mixing• Sieving• Extraction with extraction solution• Filtration • Measurement with Metos® NPK

Measurement values and units:Concentrations of NO , NH , mineral nitrogen (NO + NH ), K und P O :

• Nutrient weight per liquid volume (mg/L = ppm)• Nutrient weight per kg of soil (g / kg)

Technical data:

Minimum sample volume: 0,15 ml

Measurement range: 5 – 1000 ppm0,01 – 2 g / kg

Resolution: 0,5 ppm1 mg / kg

Accuracy: For measurements of liquid concentrations (ppm): ±10 %For measurements of soil concentrations (mg / kg): ±15 %

Chip life time: 12 hours after braking of the sterile package

Battery capacity: 12 hours measurement time3 months standby time

Duration of one measurement: 5 minutes

- the mobile soil nutrient laboratory METOS NPK®

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