Real-time condition monitoring and early warning of failure of potable water using novel fluorescence spectroscopy instrumentation

《水工业法》、《供水（水质）条例》和《私人供水条例》规定，供水公司有责任在供水时和供水点提供健康的水。供应不适合人类饮用的水是犯罪行为。健康是通过参考分配给各种微生物，化学和物理参数的规定浓度来定义的。微生物参数的规定浓度或值依赖于指示生物，如大肠菌群细菌、大肠杆菌和菌落计数。除符合标准外，水不得含有任何浓度可能对人体健康构成潜在危险的微生物或寄生虫。为了保障供水质量，国内外迫切需要提供新的实时水质评估工具和技术。本文提出了一种创新的解决方案，即通过开发新型仪器来利用饮用水的荧光特性。所有的水都发出荧光；然而，大多数荧光是在紫外线中发出的，所以人眼是看不见的。然而，现成的设备可以检测到这种荧光。以前的工作已经确定了荧光与河流（即原始）水质之间的关系。具体来说，研究表明，在220-240nm或270-280nm激发下，340-370 nm发出的荧光（色氨酸样荧光）表明微生物活性，而在300-360nm激发下，400-480nm发出的荧光（富利维克样荧光）表明有机碳的存在。荧光光谱学对微生物材料的敏感性提供了机会，使水质评估技术发生重大变化，超越了指示生物过时和有限的使用，以加强向客户供应的安全。该项目侧重于设计、严格的测试（从工作台到现场原型），以及在配水系统中部署的首个全led双峰值饮用水质量评估工具的实施。这将是实时评价水质和主动管理饮用水分配系统方面的重大进展。本研究的潜在应用和效益是显著的。项目的可交付成果将直接影响到：国家的健康（通过改善安全水资源的网络供应和管理）；通过优化采样和网络分析，以及与当前方法相比预期的分析成本降低，节省了成本，从而为国家创造了财富。这些影响的受益者多种多样，包括：2.普通大众；2 .商业私营部门（如仪器制造商和私营供水公司）；3 .监管机构（如英国的环境局和饮用水监察局）；立法者和规划者，5。英国和国际学者。

The Water Industry Act, the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations and the Private Water Supplies Regulations place a duty on water companies to supply water that is wholesome at the time and point of supply. It is a criminal offence to supply water that is unfit for human consumption. Wholesomeness is defined by reference to prescribed concentrations assigned to various microbiological, chemical and physical parameters. Prescribed concentrations or values for microbiological parameters rely on indicator organisms, such as coliform bacteria, E. coli and colony counts. In addition to meeting standards, water must not contain any micro-organism or parasite at a concentration which would constitute a potential danger to human health. To help safeguard quality of water supply, there is an urgent national and international need to provide novel real-time water quality assessment tools and techniques. It is proposed here that an innovative solution to this issue is to exploit the fluorescence characteristics of drinking water through the development of novel instrumentation. All water fluoresces; however most of the fluorescence is emitted in the ultraviolet, so it is invisible to the human eye. However, off-the-shelf equipment can detect this fluorescence. Previous work has identified relationships between fluorescence and river (i.e. raw) water quality. Specifically, it has been shown that fluorescence emitted at 340-370 nm under excitation at 220-240nm or 270-280nm (tryptophan-like fluorescence) is indicative of microbial activity, whilst fluorescence emitted at 400-480nm under excitation at 300-360nm (fulvic-like fluorescence) is indicative of the presence of organic carbon. The sensitivity of fluorescence spectroscopy to microbial material presents the opportunity to effect a major step change in water quality assessment techniques, moving beyond the dated and limited use of indicator organisms, to enhance security of supply to customers. This project focuses on the design, rigorous testing (progressing from bench top to field prototype) and implementation of the first all-LED dual peak potable water quality assessment tool for deployment within water distribution systems. This would represent a significant advance in the real-time assessment of water quality and proactive management of potable water distribution systems.The potential application and benefits of the impacts from this research are significant. The project's deliverables will have a direct impact upon:1. the nation's health (through its improvements to network supply and management of safe water resources) and2. the nation's wealth through cost savings achieved through optimisation of sampling and analysis of networks and an anticipated reduction in analysis costs compared to current approaches.The beneficiaries of these impacts are diverse and include:1. the general public,2. the commercial private sector (e.g. instrument manufacturers and private water companies),3. regulators (e.g. in the UK the Environment Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate),4. legislators and planners, 5. UK-based and international academics.