AWWA WQTC55162

Real-time monitoring of pollutants in potable water is an area of interest and concern for water supply companies, as the supply of sub-standard quality water can draw many complaints from public and industrial consumers. Water and water tainted with 2-chlorophenol at varying concentrations was used to assess the application of using a chemical sensor array to monitor for changes in the headspace generated from an on-line flow-cell. Results demonstrated that the headspace generated from a sparged water sample could be successfully used to detect the presence of organic pollutants (such as 2-chlorophenol) in water using an array of chemical sensors. Comparisons of sensor responses and multivariate analysis has shown that water and water tainted with known concentrations of tainting compounds, can be separated down to 1 part per million (ppm) concentrations. Current work is focusing on increasing the sensitivity of the sampling system by modifying the flow-cell design and sampling parameters, investigating the effects that different real water types have on the detection of pollutants and developing data analysis protocols to identify sudden changes in water quality in real-time. Includes 17 references, figures.