How Does a Water Quality Sensor Work?
Sensors are used to measure water quality and perform water quality assessments for applications like disease control and prevention.
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Image Credit: Sergey Mironov/shutterstock.com
A water quality monitoring system can supply crucial data to researchers, operators and engineers for use in laboratory research, quality control, and hydraulic model calibration by tracking shifts in the quality of the water source over time.
Water quality sensors can be the eyes and ears of system operators, offering real-time actionable data that can be used to preserve water quality in distribution systems. Water quality evaluation can also alert organizations like centers for disease control, helping to prevent a public health catastrophe.
Water quality sensor information is commonly used for decision-making on a wide range of management issues, including meeting regulatory water quality requirements, identifying non-regulatory water quality for key users, confirming water quality modeling and applying a contamination warning system.
The chemical, biological and physical conditions of water resources indicate their quality in numerous ways. Even small shifts in characteristics like pH measurements can impact those relying on the water source.
To maintain quality, water quality evaluations should track parameters like conductivity, dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity, temperature and turbidity is essential. For the very same reason, water quality sensors have become standard in many systems.
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Water quality sensors are applied via two fundamental approaches. They are either used to directly gauge components of interest, like chemical concentrations, or to assess surrogates, which are indicators that may reveal the presence of contaminants.
There are many kinds of water quality sensors currently in use. Below is a short list of the most commonly used sensors.
Residual Chlorine Sensor
Determining residual chlorine in water treatment centers and distribution systems is essential in safely treating water and has been important as long as chlorine has been used to disinfect water.
These water quality sensors evaluate the level of free chlorine, monochloramine, and total chlorine in the water source. The principal application is drinking water disinfection, although total chlorine is also often assessed when treating wastewater.
Total Organic Carbon Sensors
Total organic carbon (TOC) is both a direct indicator and a surrogate, and is a crucial parameter for water quality evaluation. There are two types of TOC water quality sensors currently available: TOC analyzers and TOC sensors.
If used for regulatory reporting, governing an essential process-control variable or quality control, instrument reliability is crucial. If used for general TOC tracking – not for making important quality decisions, then other water quality sensor properties may be more essential than accuracy.
Turbidity Sensor
Turbidity sensors gauge suspended solids in water, normally by determining the amount of light that is able to pass through the water. These water quality sensors are used in river and stream testing, wastewater measurements, drinking water treatment operations, settling ponds management, sediment transport study and laboratory testing.
Conductivity Sensor
Conductivity testing is often conducted in industrial settings to obtain data on total ionic concentrations, such as the amount of dissolved compounds, in aqueous solutions. Common applications include water purification, clean in place (CIP) control, and measuring concentration amounts in solutions.
A standard conductivity sensor can be either an inline sensor directly inserted or a water quality sensor in a housing, with a cable linked to a transmitter, which sends signals to a processing and/or recording device.
pH Sensor
The pH of a solution, how acidic or basic it is, is a major indicator of water quality. pH sensors are usually a single electrode, typically made of glass and quite delicate. An electrode is typically attached to an analyzer that has an interface for water quality data collection, calibration, and alerts.
ORP Sensor
ORP sensors gauge the Oxygen-Reduction Potential of a water source. Used in conjunction with a pH sensor, an ORP measurement can offer insight into the degree of oxidation/reduction reactions taking place in the solution. An ORP Sensor should be connected to an effective interface and software to gather data.
