Abstract
This work investigates the use of a commercial optical product monitor to achieve in-line real-time water content analysis. Test fluids were used and optical measurements of attenuation of light intensity at four colours were made. These measurements were used to identify any relationship between these and the water quality parameters of turbidity and colour. Variation in light attenuation for turbidities up to 1700 NTU was successfully resolved by the instrument, with optical data for turbidities ≥ 20 NTU fitting well the Beer-Lambert model. The sensor was also able to clearly identify the effect of filtering out suspended solids with unfiltered samples (apparent colour) exhibiting significantly higher attenuation coefficients than filtered samples (true colour). Further studies will concentrate on whether the instrument can analyse samples with turbidities higher than 1700 NTU, together with further investigating the variation in the attenuation coefficient seen with turbidity and colour of light.
Highlights
Water, as a resource, has often been neglected when it comes to considering its consumption, with many manufacturing companies failing to explore less obvious measures for optimizing their water operations
In-line measurements of the attenuation of the intensity of light were made at four colours with a commercial optical product monitor in use in the food industry
These measurements were supported by off-line water quality parameter measurements
Summary
As a resource, has often been neglected when it comes to considering its consumption, with many manufacturing companies failing to explore less obvious measures for optimizing their water operations. Water, as an industrial commodity, must start being increasingly considered as a valuable material that requires a rational and systematic approach for its careful use. This is more critical to the food-industry where water is widely-used as it is involved in many processing methods and unit operations, e.g. for soaking, washing, rinsing, fluming, blanching, scalding, heating, pasteurising, chilling, cooling, steam production, as an ingredient, for general cleaning, and sanitation and disinfection purposes [3,18]. A non-exclusive list of such sensors is as follows: optical-density probes, in-situ microscopes, optical biosensors, fibre-optic sensors, surface plasmon sensors, refractometers, near infrared sensors, fluorescence sensors, and ultra-violet sensors [9,12,24]
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