Evaluation of Drinking Water Quality and Treatment from Coolers in Public Places in Madinah City, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The aim of this work is to prevent the public drinking from water coolers, by using an auto-detection process, if the quality of water is low. Therefore, the proposed water treatment management system for allows the activation of dispensers to provide the best-quality water coolers. The objective is to investigate the quality of the drinking water from coolers in public places in Madinah and to provide clean, safe, and healthy drinking water for the general public. The methodology consisted of performing different analyses, tests, and water treatments, such as physicochemical analyses of the water samples, measurements of the different concentrations of anions, measurements of the concentrations of heavy metals, and bacteriological tests of the water samples. Therefore, 66 water samples were tested, and the experimental values were compared with the reference values given by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Saudi Standards, Metrology, and Quality Organization (SASO) for drinking water. The tests revealed that the physicochemical parameters (pH, EC, TDS, and TH) of different water sources (95.5%) were in accordance with the SASO and WHO values. In addition, all the analyzed water samples (100%) contained permissible levels of nitrates, sulfates, nitrites, and free residual chlorine, as indicated by the results. However, 68.2% of the samples studied had fluoride concentrations below the standard limits. Furthermore, heavy metals such as lead, iron, and others were tested for all water coolers. The measured findings indicated that just one cooler exceeded the permissible limit of 0.3 mg/L for Fe, and the biological contamination testing revealed that 4.5% of the coolers were infected with coliforms. Finally, this research suggests that water coolers should be regularly maintained. Additionally, using the best design for the water desalination process is very important to give the best drinking water quality.