Ensuring chemical and microbial water quality is an ever increasing important issue world-wide. Currently, determination of microbial water quality is a time (and money) consuming manual laboratory process. We have developed and field-tested an online and real-time sensor for measuring the microbial water quality of a wide range of source waters. The novel optical technique, in combination with advanced data analysis, yields a measure for the microbial content present in the sample. This gives a fast and reliable detection capability of microbial contamination of the source. Sample acquisition and analysis is performed real-time where objects in suspension are differentiated into e.g. organic/inorganic subgroups. The detection system is a compact, low power, reagentless device and thus ideal for applications where long service intervals and remote operations are desired. Due to the very large dynamic range in measured parameters, the system is able to monitor process water in industry and food production as well as monitor waste water, source water and water distribution systems. The applications envisioned for this system includes early warning of source water contamination and/or variation. This includes: water plants/water distribution networks, filtration systems (water purification), commercial buildings, swimming pools, waste water effluent, and industry in general.
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