Water quality monitors now have Ammonium and Fluoride capability

Jul 02 2009

Intellitect water (UK) has announced that ammonium and fluoride sensors have been added to the range of parameters available on the company’s Intellisonde™ water quality monitors.

Recent advances in monitoring technology have enabled the measurement of water quality at the point of delivery through the direct insertion of specially designed ’Intellisondes™’ into distribution pipes. Initial units were able to measure a range of water quality parameters (including chlorine) but both fluoride and ammonium have now been added to the list. Intellitect’s Technical Director, David Vincent believes that this new facility will be of great value to water companies, adding, "Both species are naturally present in drinking water, however, fluoride levels in drinking water are tightly regulated for oral health purposes and ammonium levels are of interest for two reasons. Firstly, they can indicate contamination of sanitary significance and secondly, they can form part of a disinfection process to form chloramine which maintains chlorine in the distribution system. "The key feature of the new sensors is their size; the whole sonde, containing all of the sensors, fits inside a 1½ inch valve so the sensors, which are Ion Selective Electrodes, are very small." It was from observing different patterns of dental decay in areas of differing levels of naturally fluoridated water that the benefits of fluoride were first observed. Currently around six million people in England receive water which either has had its level of fluoride adjusted to, or has a natural fluoride content of around 1 mg/l. The Guideline Value suggested by the World Health Organisation, dependent on local conditions, is 1.5mg/l of Fluoride. At present, drinking water quality is mostly measured at the treatment plant, but with the arrival of Intellisondes™, real-time measurements can now be taken at any point in the distribution network and with the addition of both Fluoride and Ammonium to the choice of sensors, Water Companies will be able to further improve both the efficiency of treatment processes and the reliability of the delivered product.