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See how Innosol Instrumentation Can Benefit Your Facility

The Innosol instrumentation provides economic and water-quality&safety benefits at many stages throughout water treatment processes. Read the table below to find out what benefits the Innosol instrumentation will give to your facility.

Water Treatment Process		Value Added Summary for potable water purification plants and water distribution systems
In-Situ Source Water Analysis	Surface Water	Water Quality & Safety: In-situ detect, characterize, and respond to unpredictable spikes of source suspended solids (SS), e.g. inorganics due to industrial pollution, and organics due to agricultural Pollution.1
	Ground Water	Water Quality & Safety: In-situ detect concentrations and types of suspended solids in ground water resulting from penetration of surface water into ground source or shifts in underground flows to protect against dangerous biological contamination of ground sources that are typically less guarded.2
Coagulation/Flocculation		Economic Benefits: Save at least 20% of coagulants/flocculants through in-situ optimization of their usage to sufficiently remove desired amount of SS from water.3
		Water Quality & Safety: Assuring that the quantity and proportion(s) of added chemicals are adjusted on as-needed basis to remove unwanted SS from water.
Selection and Assessment of Flocculants/Coagulants		Economic Benefits: Quantitatively determine the most cost effective choice of flocculants/ coagulants by assessing performance of water treatment chemical products.
		Water Quality & Safety: Verify performance of flocculants/coagulants against manufacturing specifications to ensure level of quality and safety of water for consumers.
Sedimentation		Economic Benefits: Reduce labour cost, electricity consumption and slag by preventing over-usage of coagulants/flocculants.
Filtration	Nano-/Micro-Filtration	Economic Benefits: Substantially cut labour required for filtration battery inspection/repair.4
		Water Quality & Safety: In-situ detect cracked and broken water filtration pipes and narrow their location down to specific segments in filtration battery. In-situ identify log-removal.
	Gravity Filtration	Economic Benefit: Substantially save costs and time in determining log-removal of SS.
		Water Quality & Safety: In-situ detect breakthrough of biological and non-biological SS (separately) through the filtration medium. In-situ determine overall and selective log-removal for biological, organic, and inorganic SS.5
	Back-washing	Economic Benefits: Avoid unnecessary backwashing by in-situ determining the optimal backwashing point.6
		Water Quality & Safety/ Economic Benefits: Significantly increasing cost effectiveness and quality of mandatory periodic testing of performance of filtration systems.7
Disinfection		Economic Benefits: In-situ optimize disinfection to use only the amount of UV/chemicals that is really necessary to neutralize biological microorganisms, taking in consideration the known phenomenon of pathogens attaching to and hiding inside other particles.8
		Water Quality & Safety: In-situ detect biological content in finished water. Assure adequate dosage of disinfectants (chemical or UV).9
Water Distribution System		Economic Benefits: Greatly reduce costs and time required for decontaminating municipal and local (e.g. building plumbing) water distribution systems by in-situ identifying the location of the source(s) of contamination.10
		Water Quality & Safety: In-situ detect and precisely pinpoint latent contamination areas in municipal and local water distribution systems.
Streamline Process of Further Analysis of SS in Water		Economic Benefits: Substantially reduce the labour and disposables’ costs required for samples collection; reduce costs of lab analysis.
		Water Quality & Safety: Obtain statistically significant samples of concentrated SS from 100 – 20 000 L of water (as required by local regulations) into a 1L sample without using standard filtration medium for the purpose of preserving physical, chemical, and biological integrity of the sample.

¹ Predicting turbidity changes of source water is difficult or impossible because while weather changes daily cycles have known effects, events involving upstream industrial or agricultural water pollution can produce large spikes in contamination. The Innosol instrumentation not only automatically detects these events in real time, it indicates simultaneously but separately the type (inorganic, organic, biological), concentration, and sizes of SS. These instrumentation capabilities allow mitigation of spikes of SS, prevention of over-use of water treatment chemicals, and have other economic, water quality, and safety benefits.

² Well sources tend to have less variability than surface sources since they are not generally affected by weather and events at the surface. However, through the years there have been unforeseen cases in which surface water penetrates and contaminates the ground source. Furthermore, the movement of groundwater streams can suddenly change, causing undesirable changes in the quality of well-water. Therefore many well-based water treatment facilities are not adequately prepared for such changes. Commercially available particle counters cannot distinguish between the type of SS in water and identify those that are a serious risk to health. Moreover, they typically sample very small water volumes (typically below 1L/h) while distribution of SS in large water volumes is not homogeneous at all. Therefore extrapolating results of such particle counts to large volumes of water may lead to inaccurate conclusions. Contrary, the Innosol instrumentation analyzes large water volumes and works in a very wide range of concentrations of SS from extremely low, e.g. 1 particle in 1000 L, up to millions of particles per cc while at the same time working with very wide particle size ranges starting from 1 um and up, and most importantly having the ability to distinguish between the different types of SS (inorganic, organic, biological).

³ The Innosol can in-situ detect, count, and characterize, simultaneously but separately, inorganic, organic, and biological SS. The obtained quantifiable data, which is not otherwise possible to obtain in-situ, allows instantaneous determination of the optimal amounts and, optionally, ratios (if more than one type is used), of flocculants/coagulants to maximize cost effectiveness and performance of the flocculation/coagulation process. Based on practical experience working with Innosol instrumentation, water treatment facilities should expect at least 20% reduction of water treatment chemicals, even if water treatment facilities have well-optimized flocculation/coagulation processes. See also the document “Optimization of Coagulation and Flocculation Process” a study performed on a coagulation and flocculation process believed to be optimal, conducted at a highly reputable water treatment facility in Canada.

⁴ One aspect of using micro- or nano-filters (e.g. Zenon membrane systems) is that it is very laborious to verify the integrity of the battery of tubes. Many facilities therefore only do this twice a year. However breakage of tubes in effect allows portions of water to bypass the filtration stage altogether. The Innosol instrumentation can in-situ detect this type of event because it is capable of resolving extremely small changes in content and concentration of SS in water (including also different locations inside the same large water tank). This data then be used to pinpoint exactly in what segment the breakage resides by testing the output of each segment.

⁵ Determining the log-removal of a gravity filter can be an expensive, time consuming, and labour intensive task in some cases taking more than a week. Furthermore, while the log-removal of overall content of SS may be acceptable by regulatory agencies, the level of the biological portion of the entire SS in finished water may not be below permissible level. The Innosol instrumentation provides two unique significant advantages in this regard: first by determining the log-removal in-situ; second by separately determining the log-removal of inorganic, organic, and biological components of SS.

⁶ Timing of backwashing of filters is an important component of plant optimization. Of course, over the course of its lifetime, the backwashable filters cycle changes and it also depends on the varying content of SS in water. Furthermore, not all SS are equal. For example, as the differential pressure of a backwashable filter rises, the probability of biological SS breaking through increases. Please see study number 3. in the document “Examples_of_Performed_Studies_Innosol.pdf” to read about a recent study on combined economic and safety benefits resulting from Innosol measurements on a backwashable filter at a reputable water treatment facility.

⁷ Most water treatment facilities are required to test performance of backwashable filters on a monthly or semi-monthly basis. This requires filtering 100 – 10 000 L (depending on regulatory requirements at your location) of water through a specialized cartridge (i.e. Envirocheck) and subsequently sending the cartridge to a licensed lab for analysis of concentration of certain biological SS. The process of preparing this cartridge for lab analysis is costly, requires a full day for 1 or 2 personnel, and the lab results generally arrive at a delay of 1-2 weeks. The Innosol (which can analyze 40 000 L/d) can perform a similar analysis in-situ in 3-4 hours without continuous supervision. Furthermore with an Innosol installed in-line, the breakthrough of microorganisms through a filter can be detected immediately for timely action.

⁸ Quantity of UV irradiation or chemical disinfectant can be reduced with appropriate quantifiable measures while achieving the disinfection goals. Innosol instrumentation detects presence of down to 1 microbiological organism per 1000 L of finished water automatically, in-situ, with SCADA compatible alarms for absolute quality/safety assurance to consumer.

⁹ It is known that water-borne pathogens can be substantially more difficult to deactivate by disinfection (by either chemical or UV methods) when they reside within other suspended particles. Instances of having pathogens attached to or residing inside other particles lead to waste of disinfecting chemicals and/or inadequate UV treatment and presents a danger to customers. The Innosol is capable of in-situ quantifiable detection and measuring concentration of such microorganisms (without necessarily identifying the specific type of microorganism) such that it may be mitigated. At different locations, municipal drinking water treatment facilities may be subject to different regulatory and/or liscencing requirements. Should a municipal drinking water treatment facility ask for our help, and in the event where our services would require a liscence and/or permission from a responsible regulatory and/or liscencing agency, we will seek such a liscence and/or permission prior to conduct the requested work.

¹⁰ Contact R&D Innovative Solutions Inc. for more details