Application of total organic carbon (TOC), ultraviolet (UV) absorbance and fluorescence measurements for organic fractions and conductivity measurements for inorganic compounds are some of the widely adopted approaches enabling characterization of drinking water, wastewater, and potable reuse matrices. Each of these is limited to detection of analyte subsets with specific properties, such as the presence of organic carbon, aromaticity, chromophores with absorption/fluorescent properties, and charge-conducting ions. In this study we attempt to exploit the quasi-universal detection capacity of charged-aerosol detection (CAD) following flow-injection [i.e., flow injection analysis (FIA)] of sample into an aqueous stream to provide a bulk characterization of the matrix of interest, generating a single peak of non-specific response to non-volatile and semi-volatile organics and inorganic compounds. Efforts focused on developing a method with minimized background and maximized peak response by optimizing the CAD chamber temperature, eluent flow and composition, sample preparation and injection volume among other parameters. Approaches for calibration and semi-quantitation of samples evaluated included (1) an inorganic standard, (2) an organic standard, (3) an organic/inorganic combination and, (4) serial matrix dilution. The effectiveness of this method in capturing all organic and inorganic compounds was further evaluated by comparing with traditional methods such as conductivity, TOC, and total dissolved solids. This work also details the deployment of this technique to monitor removal of aggregate matter across different treatment processes related to drinking water and potable reuse and proposes a valuable application of online CAD analyzers for long-term real-time water quality monitoring and contaminant removal assessments.

Development of a flow injection analysis/charged aerosol detection (FIA-CAD) method for monitoring water quality and treatment

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