Poster Abstract: HERMES - Heavy Element Real-time Monitoring for Environmental Safety

Heavy metal contamination in soil presents substantial risks to public health, industry, and the larger biosphere. Current methodologies for detecting heavy elements rely on labor-intensive sampling methods and time-consuming laboratory analysis, limiting temporal and spatial resolution. We present HERMES, an in-development heavy metal monitoring system that can be placed around high risk areas. HERMES leverages soil microbial fuel cells as autonomous biosensors. These biosensors when deployed as a sensor field, can monitor soil conditions and transmit data using a distributed machine learning framework. By providing improvements in the speed and resolution of heavy metal contamination detection, HERMES aims to enable earlier intervention and mitigate long-term damages.