A new $630,000 grant from the Australian Research Council will allow University of Tasmania Professor Michael Breadmore and his team to develop the future of portable analytical systems. 

Professor Breadmore said he was interested in creating portable devices, such as telephone apps, that could provide chemical information on any kind of problem.

Already, systems such as home-pregnancy and blood-alcohol tests allow answers on the spot.

But Professor Breadmore said there was hope 3D printing technology would allow for more complex analysis.

“My research, for probably about the last 10 years, has been trying to make analytical technology portable so that we can get chemical information at the sites where we collect samples,” he said. 

“It means that we will be able to engineer things on the order of the size of a cell.” 

Professor Breadmore said this had the potential to be used in a wide variety of different areas. 

“If you're running a temperature, maybe there's a really simple blood test that you can do before you go to the doctor,” he said. 

“If you think about monitoring nutrients as they run off paddocks if they've been over-furtilised, being able to see how those nutrients move into the water ways.”

The ARC grant will allow Professor Breadmore and his team to work with Taiwanese organisation Young Optics to build a new high-resolution, high-speed printer to allow this new technology.

“We will be able to make things that are about the size of a cell and in those things we will be able to do lots of interesting and fantastic chemistry,” he said. 

Last week, Infrastructure Australia announced its support for the university’s bid to build a new science, technology, engineering and mathematics facility in Hobart.

Professor Breadmore said if the project were to go ahead, it would escalate and accelerate scientific capabilities across Tasmania.

“It’s pretty amazing to realise that we are having such a global reach and impact with what we do here,” he said.