WATER INDUSTRY FEATURES

• Know Your Options For Mag Meter Installation Cost, Care, And Calibration

  Electromagnetic meters (mag meters) are well established in terms of highly accurate performance for a variety of municipal and industrial water applications. Differences in their construction formats, however, dictate how easy they can be to install, maintain, and calibrate. Compare these three options to see the value of full-profile-insertion (FPI) mag meters and their associated advantages in real-world use.

• Seal The Deal: Shielding Against A Mag Meter’s Achilles Heel

  When it comes to metering water flow — drinking water or wastewater — full-bore mag meters offer many advantages. While the underlying technology based on Faraday’s Law of electromagnetic induction is shared among all styles of full-bore mag meters, specific implementations have impacts on longevity and accuracy. Here is what to look for when the time to choose arrives.

• CHO Cell Cultivation In A Mini Bioreactor System And Parallel Bioreactor Systems

  A guide through all steps of a bioprocess, starting from the preparation of the inoculum to the preparation and operation of the vessels and bioprocess systems, the bioprocess run, and analysis of samples.

• Beware Of Problematic Wastewater Aeration Additives

  Too much of a good thing can create new problems as quickly as it resolves old ones. Maintaining a proper balance of antifoaming agents and polymer additives is critical for sustaining the appropriate air bubble size and distribution needed to achieve dissolved oxygen (DO) requirements for neutralizing high biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) in many industrial and food processing wastewater applications.

• Robotics, Isolators & Restricted Access Barrier Systems (RABS)

  The aim of advanced aseptic processing is the elimination and absolute control of all sources of contaminations - most importantly, human generated contamination. Robotics and isolator-barrier systems will be the core technologies in meeting this endeavor.

• New AMI Capabilities Help Satisfy Utility Aims

  Finding new ways to capture and utilize data is important for utilities looking to improve operating efficiency and customer service. This interview with Frank Brooks and Dave Rubin from Aclara — a smart-infrastructure solutions partner for water, gas, and/or electric utilities — outlines ways to do both within a common infrastructure.

• Calibrating Success: Improved Tools To Maintain Flowmeter Accuracy

  Water utilities with highly successful monitoring programs tend to share a common trait: they have a well-defined plan for calibration that emphasizes frequency and tracking. However, when done properly, this process is time-consuming and often leads to unnecessary labor and downtime. The good news is that advanced metering technology is available for plants to get a better handle on the instrument’s performance with significantly less effort.

• Phosphate In Groundwater And Surface Water: A Rapid And Reliable Determination Method Using The Photometric Spectroquant® Test

  Phosphorus is an essential element for organisms and plants. In natural, uncontaminated waters, it occurs as organically bound phosphate, condensed phosphates or as orthophosphate — often referred to by its chemical formula PO₄-P. The small quantity of phosphorus present in natural waters does not promote the growth of plants. However, a rise in the concentration of phosphorus results in the proliferation of algae, which leads to the eutrophication of the water body.

• Irrigation Consumer Bill of Rights: Smart Irrigation Starts With Smart Choices

  As we celebrate Smart Irrigation Month, it's a great time to highlight not only smart technologies, but the smart people and smart decisions behind them. One remarkably smart tool that ties all three of those elements together is the Irrigation Consumer Bill of Rights by Dr. Charles Burt of the Irrigation Training and Research Center (ITRC) at the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo.

• Water Monitoring's Triple Threat: Bad Habits, Bad Readings, Bad Results

  When water and wastewater plant operators can’t get accurate flow measurements or analytical readings — or lack confidence in their instruments’ readings — it creates challenges with the process. When substandard water goes to homes and causes a boil order, or discharge pollutes a lake or reservoir, the resulting bad press, fines, and potential lawsuits erode public confidence. Avoiding these kinds of problems is rooted in good preventive maintenance habits.

• Defending Against Saltwater Intrusion

  Are “ghost forests” a sign of things to come? Rising sea levels and superstorm tidal surges are already impacting coastal areas, with rising salinity levels affecting some drinking water sources. Coastal water utilities are not the only ones that have to worry about salinity, however, as high concentrations of winter storm road treatments, gas drilling, and mining can also generate elevated salinity levels in surface water sources.

• Choosing The Right Water Disinfection

  In the mid-to-late 1800s, chlorine had been used sporadically to help control infection in hospitals and drinking water. Common water treatment did not start in the U.S. until the early twentieth century when increasing cases of waterborne illnesses prompted many large cities to begin large scale filtration of water supplies.

• Sensitive And Reproducible SPR-Based Concentration And Ligand-Binding Analyses

  Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) assays are used across the life cycle of a biopharmaceutical, from target identification, through CQA determination, development, and on-going quality control. This article focuses on concentration assays associated with late-stage development and biotherapeutic drug chemical manufacturing and control.

• Trends, Changes And Verification For Supplier Management

  Reducing risks at more points and using preventive controls have created a focus on supplier management. X-ray inspection data is one way suppliers can prove product safety to manufacturers.

• Factoring Temperature Into Water Chemistry Reading Accuracy

  In water testing, readings that we believe to be reliable indicators are not always what they seem. Water that exhibits certain chemical or electrical characteristics at laboratory temperatures can provide entirely different readings in the field. Here is a quick review of what to look for in common water tests and why to consider automatic temperature compensation in the instruments used to collect them.

• Promising Solar Technology Would Expand Drinking Water Access

  Several advancements in solar technology may provide the answer to drinking water production in distressed regions of the world.

• How Data Is Driving 30% Growth For Simpatico Systems

  Simpatico Systems began with a mission to help business owners work more efficiently, without getting tied up in complicated billing and solution options. To make it easier to run the show, President Greg Bazar chose a managed services model for his offices in California and Texas. It wasn’t long before Greg saw the need to make a change. After installing an open-source ticketing system to get things going, it took about three months before data was spread all over the place. “I knew there had to be something better,” Greg explained.

• 7 Tools For Breakthrough Quality And Performance In 30 Days

  In this sixth installment on the selection and use of quality improvement tools in your organization, Ben Locwin wraps up the series with a treatise on the 7 Tools of Quality.

• Wastewater’s Worst Case Scenarios

  Real-time data is the first line of defense for wastewater utilities. A data infrastructure serves as a window into critical operations, allowing employees to optimize equipment performance and hedge against risk. It is often the most economical solution as well: in many cases, utilities already have many of the core elements for an actionable data infrastructure for improving decision making.