On-line monitoring of wastewater quality: a review

Real-time monitoring of wastewater quality remains an unresolved problem to the wastewater treatment industry. In order tot comply with increasingly stringent environmental regulations, plant operators as well as instrument manufacturers have expressed the need for new standards and improved comparability and reliability of existing techniques. A review of currently available methods for monitoring global organic parameters (BOD, GOD, TOC) is given. The study reviews both existing standard techniques and new innovative technologies with the focus on the sensors' potential for on-line and real-time monitoring and control. Current developments of biosensors, optical sensors and sensor arrays as well. as virtual sensors for the monitoring of wastewater organic load are presented and the interests and limitations of these techniques with respect to their application to the wastewater monitoring are discussed. (C) 2001 Society of Chemical Industry.