The application or model W001-Drinking Water Alarm Monitoring and Security comprises of all means and technologies that requires real-time monitoring of produced water to validate its purity.

Arenal offers two steps how drinking water is protected:

1. we select the best technology sensors within the budget of the client, see below;
2. in continuous measurement mode, we determine if the fingerprint of the drinking water is within its normal boundaries;
3. in case of crossing one boundary, we start reporting the measurement values into a higher chemometry system database, we add the database with additional raw measurement values, we take samples for further lab analysis and we start operating addition Analysers for continuous monitoring. Other devices in the network gets the signal to log all data as well, until this was cancelled manually.

There are numerous sensors on the market to determine low concentration contaminations. Unfortunately, none of them are selective enough to determine all kind of contaminations and besides the sensitivity of a contamination on a sensor is different for another contamination.

That makes it difficult to choose one sensor for all types of contaminations. A mixture of sensors needs to be selected.

Arenal offers three types of sensors that are commonly used:

1. UVVIS spectroscopy: only reacts to small changes of organics that hopefully absorb somewhere in the spectrum. But if they do, we do not know where in the spectrum. For early warning purposes, spectral fingerprint analysis is required remotely. The fingerprint is compared in the central computing system with former fingerprints. In case of crossing boundaries, the system will alarm and analyze further the possible contamination. Unfortunately many organics does not absorb in the spectrum, as well as many acids or other chemicals. The UVVIS spectrometer is therefor one of the possible sensors in a set of sensors.
2. Ultrasonic spectroscopy: our newly developped sensor reacts on everything, as long as it is diluted and not suspended. Its sensitivity to organic contaminations or chemicals in general is very high, which makes this sensor the number 1 sensor is a set of sensors. We only miss the low concentration turbidity monitoring, with is measured as follows:
3. Turbidity: low concentration turbidity can be due to bacteria. It cannot be measured by ultrasound as the morphology does not change acoustic waves. So it is measured by means of nephelometric measurement of infrared light, to overcome the problem of influence on colour changes. We add a 3rd party sensor to our set of sensors.

Generally we do not suggest to use conductivity sensors, as they are driven by electricity and only react to ion changes, which seems ok in the first place. Firstly, organic changes are not observed, and secondly, in comparison with ultrasonic sensors, the core technology is electrical conductivity, which makes the requirement for the electrical design of the electronics very critical. In case of variations in outside temperature, the effect of the current is visible, which makes its sensitivity for ion changes less. In case of ultrasonic spectroscopy, the sensitivity to ion changes in the water is based on physical property analysis, which is not influenced by electrical design of the transmitter at all.

Thus, by replacing conductivity sensors in this application by ultrasonic spectroscopy sensors, the additional value is higher sensitivity to ion changes and sensitivity to organic changes.

Embodiments

When choosing ultrasonic spectroscopy sensors, we herewith help you selecting the correct products. Arenal offers solutions for applications with a variety of embodiments. Actually in most cases only the probe size, body shape, body material and sensor material changes, while the transmitter and Analysers keeps the same.

Depending on the application and requirement of the customer, submersible or inline sensors are used. But the small laboratory probes suit as well.