Copper Detection

[Lemming]

Out of interest, what is the demand on the copper sulphate ?? If you get the flow signal sorted, can you to change the dosing to be proportional and get to the point you are reasonably confident point B downstream will have no residual ??

 

[TheWaterboy]

I have no control over the dosing, that is handled by another agency. It moves down the canal in a cloud , I'm just trying to detect it before it hits each customer.

 

[Lemming]

If they dose it, would have thought they would have an interest in what residual was down stream, especially if there was a compliance requirement...

 

[TheWaterboy]

It's little more than weed abatement. I guess in a way they do have an interest but they only care that there is very little left at the end of the canal. That resudual depends on what consumed it along the way, so their dosage is not very helpful to this exercise.

Sometime there is so much consumption by the organics in the canal, the users never even see the copper. So they spend hours testing only to find it never made it to them.

 

[OkiePC]

If they dose it, would have thought they would have an interest in what residual was down stream, especially if there was a compliance requirement...

Actual compliance, in the USA, varies widely from state to state, and look where Waterboy lives

This is an interesting thread to follow and all I can contribute is that if E&H has a device they say will work, it will work to specs, in my experience. And their stuff is tuff. Enuff to handle a pretty nasty environment.

 

[TheWaterboy]

I just hope it can handle the sample. Raw water is tough on instruments - well, tough on the folks that have to keep it running from all the stuff that grows in the tubing. The Hach instrument has 4 reagents and very fine tubing. Nothing has been good about that combination.

 

[Lancie1]

well, tough on the folks that have to keep it running from all the stuff that grows in the tubing.

I have seen setups where there was a loop, with a solenoid valve at the entry point. The cycle was purge the line, take sample, refill line with anti-algae solution (copper sulfate?), then wait for next cycle.

 

[Lemming]

I just hope it can handle the sample. Raw water is tough on instruments - well, tough on the folks that have to keep it running from all the stuff that grows in the tubing. The Hach instrument has 4 reagents and very fine tubing. Nothing has been good about that combination.

You might want to consider a fine micron filter at the front of the instrument to prevent the worst getting through... We did a pile of UV reactors a while ago from different raw water sources, and depending on whether the CL2 was dosed before or after the sample point dictated on whether the sites turbidity and transmittance meters turned green or not... If the budget allows, you could maybe sit a drum of hypo on site and automatically run a weak solution through daily ??