GB1323853A - Processes of and apparatus for measuring organic content of water - Google Patents

Abstract

1323853 Electro-chemical measurement ENVIROTECH CORP 18 Jan 1972 2364/72 Heading G1A G1N In order to provide a measurement of the difference between the soluble ORGANIC content of two solutions e.g. inflow and outflow of a water or wastewater treatment plant or content of a river or water output of a water plant compared to a reference both refractive index and conductivity of the samples are measured. The conductivity measurement provides a measure of soluble inorganic material of the sample and can thus be used to correct the refractive index measurement representative of total soluble content to give only the ORGANIC content. In the water treatment plant shown in Fig. 1 a sample of the input 20 and output flows 18 are led to a differential conductivity device 12 such as a bridge or differential amplifier the output of which is proportional to the difference in electrical conductivity of the two samples and is fed to processor 24. A signal is also fed to 24 from differential refractometer 16 which provides a signal proportional to the difference in refractive indices of the two samples. The signals applied to 24 are adjusted by suitable constants before combination to give the organic soluble content. In order to obtain the total organic content i.e. soluble and insoluble, photo-meters 46, 48 are provided to measure the turbidity of the flows which is a measure of the insoluble organic content and applying the difference signal from 44 to the processor 24 to further correct the output. In the arrangement of Fig. 2 (not shown) a stream is monitored in a similar manner to that of Fig. 1 except that a sample of the stream is compared with a reference sample or a signal representative thereof. In both arrangements the processor output may be calibrated against results obtained by biological or chemical oxidation analytical techniques.