Onsite Water Analysis Means Quicker Decision-Making

The earlier that industries can detect contaminants or pollutants in their water supplies or reservoirs, the sooner they can address the issue and keep production processes optimized while preventing damage to the environment and to public health.

With tightening regulations, rising environmental consciousness, and reduced freshwater reserves, industrial water monitoring and management is more essential than ever. For water-intensive industries, the analysis of industrial water is a critical part of managing environmental risk and avoiding impact on quality of life.

In the past, analysis for trace metals and other contaminants required the time-consuming process of collecting water samples, delivering them to a lab, and then waiting for test results. Today it can be done onsite in less than 10 minutes.

An industrial water management company based in Finland, 3AWater recently combined its newly developed metal collection technology with Evident’s Vanta™ handheld XRF analyzer to create the Multimetal Water Analysis System (MWAS), designed to take water analysis out of the lab and into the field.

“The compatibility of 3AWater’s MWAS technology was developed with a lot of help from the XRF professionals at Evident,” said Dr. Tuomo Nissinen, the CEO of 3AWater. “We had great technical support in building calibrations and were loaned several Vanta analyzers for our development work and trials. We created a mutually successful collaboration with Evident by offering existing Vanta users a new way to use their devices, and by introducing XRF to a new water analysis client base.”

MWAS works by pumping a water sample through newly developed water collection nanotechnology that captures metal ions in a solid form and concentrates them up to 1000 times. Evident’s Vanta XRF is then used to detect and quantify the metals present in the sample. Metal concentration levels are displayed on the Vanta screen, with integrated MWAS calibrations.

MWAS requires only about a half hour of training to learn, which also greatly enhances the water testing process—now anyone can learn how to collect a sample, perform a full analysis, and upload results to the cloud in minutes instead of days or weeks. Action can then be taken immediately to address any clean water issues.

“We are aiming to put water analysis into the hands of the industrial operator,” added Nissinen. “Our practical real-time information on water quality enables fast decision-making onsite without the delays that are unavoidable with conventional lab analysis.”

MWAS also broadens the ways Evident’s XRF technology can be used for water testing at the levels needed to comply with environmental regulations. This makes it ideal for the mining and metal industries, where it can be used for ore or drill core sample grading and metal production quality control as well as wastewater analysis.