Historically, waste and drinking water treatment systems, from the simplest to the most sophisticated, have been unintelligent. They have had neither the capacity to determine whether they were under-treating or over-treating nor the ability to identify performance issues in a timely fashion. The advent of online water quality instruments to proactively manage DBPs and trace metals (<i>i.e.</i>, Arsenic, Chromium, Selenium, and more) will shift this paradigm.  Intelligent water treatment systems incorporate real-time sensing to ensure that their performance is optimized to avoid under- or over-treatment and that any deterioration in system performance is signaled to permit timely remedial intervention. Real-time data is used to rapidly identify changes in contaminant levels that then allows for immediate and cost-effective process changes to ensure regulatory and contract compliance. The high frequency of data is a powerful tool to provide predictive data on DBP formation potential and trace metal contamination levels throughout treatment processes and in distribution systems.  Examples of innovation in water quality instruments leading to the development of intelligent water treatment systems include a novel approach to generate a stannous ion reagent <i>in situ</i> via an electrolytic process for affordable and reliable hexavalent chromium remediation process, the development of a robust online raw-water THM precursor analyzer to rapidly assess the THM-FP levels in raw, not yet chlorinated, water that benefits water utilities by helping them to adjust their treatment processes accordingly to minimize the production of THMs; and for some, even reduce the costs of producing water that satisfies THM regulations, and a novel online selenium monitor to determine the levels of dissolved selenium species and total selenium species in real time to maintain the integrity of a biological process and provide cost-effective treatment of selenium.  Case studies of these innovation water quality instruments will be presented.

Intelligent water treatment systems and the role of online water quality instruments

256th National Meeting (2018)

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