Colorimetric Determination of Cu²⁺ to develop more sustainable fouling control coatings

It is important for our environment to develop sustainable fouling control coating solutions that are still effective but pollute our oceans less This PhD project investigates hydrogel surfaces, discrete release rates and cyclic uptake and release of heavy metal ions as more sustainable fouling control strategies In order to speed up the development process, we introduced an easy and cheap method to determine the concentration of Copper(II) ions in seawater The developed methodology is based on a complexing agent that will form a blue color when Copper(II) ions are present in the solution The intensity of the color depends on the copper concentration In combination with UV Vis, a calibration curve was determined This allows for accurate determination of the concentration of Copper(II) ions