Instituto Tecnológico de la Energía (ITE), together with a consortium of European institutions, and under the Watchplant project has developed an innovative network of biosensors in plants. These smart devices will allow advanced monitoring of environmental parameters in urban and natural environments indirectly, including air quality and climatic conditions, through the biochemical responses of plants in real time.

One of the most notable achievements of the project is the development of a portable biosensor capable of extracting and analyzing plant sap in situ and in real time, providing critical information in just ten minutes. This device, a pioneer in its category, allows the detection of key biomolecules that reflect plant stress in response to factors such as pollution or water stress. The biosensor, developed by the ITE biotechnology team, represents a significant advance in the ability to detect changes in the environment quickly and accurately, without affecting the health of the plant organism.

The Watchplant project’s biosensor network includes devices that monitor temperature, humidity and other biochemical parameters such as the plant’s ionic and hormonal content, allowing stress conditions to be detected before they are evident using conventional methods. This early detection is essential for proactively managing environmental quality in cities, forest areas and agri-food sectors and preventing future problems. According to ITE researcher Laura García Carmona, this development “allows for early action in the face of changes in the environment, which is vital in the current context in which climate change causes new challenges.”

The Watchplant project represents an important step towards the integration of autonomous and sustainable environmental monitoring systems that could revolutionize large-scale environmental and agricultural management. In addition to its direct applications in air quality, this technology opens the door to new uses in urban sustainability, ecosystem protection and the improvement of cultivation processes. The technology developed in Watchplant allows for continuous, real-time monitoring, which could help environmental managers respond more effectively to changing conditions and reduce the impact of human activity on the environment.

Watchplant has been led by ITE with the collaboration of key European partners: the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), the Research Center of Advanced Robotics and Environmental Science (CYBRES), the engineering company CIM-mes Projekt, and the universities of Lübeck, Konstanz and Zagreb. Each institution has contributed its expertise in areas such as biotechnology, sensors, micromanufacturing, artificial intelligence and communication networks, allowing the development of a comprehensive and innovative solution.

About Watchplant Project

Watchplant’s main objective has been to advance environmental intelligence by using plants as biohybrid sensors of the environment in which they live. This initiative has managed to develop new methodologies and tools that could transform the future of environmental monitoring and contribute to global sustainability. Watchplant is a project funded by the H2020 FETPROACT Topic: Environmental Intelligence Programme and has been evaluated with the highest possible score by the European Commission.