Continuous monitoring of water quality at aeration plant with potentiometric sensor array

The potential of multisensor array in continuous on-line monitoring of processed water quality at aeration plant is explored. The responses of 23 potentiometric sensors were continuously registered every seven seconds through the 26 days of experiment in a special container having connection with outlet water line of the aeration plant. Using chemometric tools it is shown that potentiometric "electronic tongue" is capable of evaluation of two important parameters of water quality: ammonium nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen. Unlike traditional sampling-based analysis the results of multisensor are available immediately in a real-time mode. Moreover, the achieved precision is sufficient to monitor possible alarm events. The employment of topological data analysis allowed for exploration of the very large dataset (295,828 measurements) accumulated through the long period of continuous measurements with sensors and for judgment on stability of water quality.