Lir Labs

What it does

LIR Labs provides water monitoring with affordable, AI-powered sensors detecting contaminants like parasites and microplastics in real-time to enable rapid responses for water utilities, disaster zones, and beyond.

Your inspiration

One of our co-founders is from Turkey, and we were shocked to learn that over 3 million people may have been exposed to contaminants like asbestos and microplastics in their drinking water following the devastating earthquake three years ago. We initially explored filtration and treatment solutions, but found that while many technologies exist, they often don’t reach affected communities, largely due to a lack of actionable data, and the scale of need. This led us to focus on continuous and predictive water monitoring, which is essential for efficient critical resource allocation, early warnings, and proactive maintenance

How it works

We have built a sensor that automatically and continuously samples water. While we have prototyped for sampling from a supply pipe, the potentials for deployment in different scenarios such as water tanks and reservoirs are vast. The water sample is pumped through our custom optical system and analysed to detect virtually any contaminant in the micron range, from asbestos and parasites to algae and microplastics. The AI computation is happening on edge, on each sensor device individually, allowing for a streamlined data pipeline with minimal bandwidth needs for communication. With only a software update the system can be adapted to detect further contaminants and can be customised to the specific needs of a location or situation.

Design process

We began working on water contamination in October 2024 as part of our master’s project. Initially, we aimed to develop the first water monitor capable of detecting asbestos fibers in drinking water, spurred by alarming reports of millions to billions of fibers per liter due to failing infrastructure and in the aftermath of natural disasters, and their link to various cancers. Through iterative development, rapid prototyping, and alternating divergent and convergent design phases, we engineered the core components of our technology. Since asbestos is chemically inert, we pursued an optical detection method. After completing our first product iteration, we investigated user needs and market viability. While the problem drew interest, the delayed onset of health effects and lack of regulation presented major barriers to deployment. We then pivoted to focus on more immediate threats in water, such as parasites, algae, and microplastics—offering real-time analysis of suspended particles. This also opened the possibility of network-level monitoring of water infrastructure health. Throughout, we’ve followed a value-driven, impact-focused innovation process, guided by the urgency of global water safety challenges.

How it is different

Water quality analysis is traditionally labor-intensive, costly, and dependent on expert skills. Our design introduces a fundamentally new approach: a cost-effective, easy-to-deploy, intelligent monitoring system that enables network-scale coverage while minimizing human error. Our patent-pending technology is approximately 12 times faster than conventional methods and up to 20 times more affordable than automated lab-based microscopes. What truly sets us apart is our unique integration of automated sampling, and real-time on-edge processing - all performed in situ. This allows for offline, immediate analysis not offered by any competing systems.

Future plans

We have secured commercial LOIs and are currently preparing for pilots in the drinking water industry. We are planning to move towards a technology readiness level of 9 within the next 12 months and reach full regulatory compliance for commercial deployment within 18 months. Collaborations with filtration and water companies in humanitarian aid are in development with a goal to provide a robust, multipurpose solution for rapid deployment and holistic analysis of drinking water safety. From there we are planning on expanding our focus on environmental water resource management, monitoring industrial effluents and surface water quality.

Awards

We have won the Inventive Pioneers Award by InnovationRCA, which funded our Patent application. We have come in second place for the Ideas to Impact Challenge by the Gandhi Center for Inclusive Design and are currently under the top 20 out of 15000 applicants for the Hult Prize Accelerator with a 1 Million investment award.