Water spectral pattern as holistic marker for water quality monitoring

• Novel approach in water quality evaluation is introduced and successfully applied.
• The potential of NIR and aquaphotomics in water quality monitoring has been proven.
• Monitoring of water structural changes provides information about water quality.
• The spectral pattern of water can be used as its quality indicator.
• Applicability of the approach has been proven in laboratory and real situations.

Online water quality monitoring technologies have been improving continuously. At the moment, water quality is defined by the respective range of few chosen parameters. However, this strategy requires sampling and it cannot provide evaluation of the entire water molecular system including various solutes. As it is nearly impossible to monitor every single molecule dissolved in water, the objective of our research is to introduce a complimentary approach, a new concept for water screening by observing the water molecular system changes using aquaphotomics and Quality Control Chart method. This approach can continuously provide quick information about any qualitative change of water molecular arrangement without taking into account the reason of the alteration of quality. Different species and concentrations of solutes in aqueous systems structure the water solvent differently. Aquaphotomics investigates not the characteristic absorption bands of the solute in question, but the solution absorption at vibrational bands of water's covalent and hydrogen bonds that have been altered by the solute. The applicability of the proposed concept is evaluated by monitoring the water structural changes in different aqueous solutions such as acid, sugar, and salt solutions at millimolar concentration level and in ground water. The results show the potential of the proposed approach to use water spectral pattern monitoring as bio marker of water quality. Our successful results open a new venue in water quality monitoring by offering a quick and cost effective method for continuous screening of water molecular arrangement. Instead of the regular analysis of individual physical or chemical parameters, with our method – as a complementary tool – the structural changes of water molecular system used as a mirror reflecting even small disturbances in water can indicate the necessity of further detailed analysis by conventional methods.

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