Technology Advancements Improving Real Time Spectral Analysis

Real time spectrophotometers offer the immediate detection capability of a wide range of important and emerging contaminants of concern.

There is an increasing shift from relying on time consuming, traditional water quality analysis in the lab environment, towards real time continuous monitoring. This is due to the benefits real time monitoring provides through the early and rapid detection of contamination and from the timely detection of changes in a process allowing for fast corrective action. However, there are a number of inherent challenges that are faced when taking traditional lab analysis to the plant, process or distribution system environment.

Optical measurement of water quality through use of spectral analysis with a spectrophotometer is one such measurement technique that offers numerous benefits when performed in real time rather than in the traditional lab. Real time spectrophotometers offer the immediate detection capability of a wide range of important and emerging contaminants of concern including nitrates, TOC/UV254, turbidity, pesticides, diesel fuel and many other chemical contaminants all from one analyzer. The data redundancy provided by real time spectrophotometry measurements allows complex statistical analysis techniques, commonly referred to as chemometrics, to be used to extract surprising amounts of information from the absorbance spectrum which can determine the quantities of different chemicals present in the water. This type of information can be invaluable for process control applications and for monitoring the levels of certain chemical contaminants in water.