Development of Low Frequency Dielectric Cell for Water Quality Application

Most available methods for determination of water quality in water bodies such as rivers, lakes, and reservoirs are based on the collection of water samples from water bodies and subsequent laboratory analysis. While these methods are standard and could provide accurate measurements and evaluation of water quality, they are costing and time consuming and do not provide the continuous monitoring and assessing of water quality. In this paper, low frequency dielectric cell is developed for determination the water quality. The proposed method was used to measure the dielectric properties of water. The method was calibrated and validated by measuring dielectric properties of standard materials such as Teflon. The measured dielectric properties of water were used to determine several water quality parameters such as salinity, temperature, turbidity. The proposed method has advantages in compare with the available techniques for water quality including simple, low cost, safe, possible to be continuous and online method, and can be used for in-situ as in the lab. Dielectric constant and loss factor of water decrease with increasing frequency. The rise of water temperature caused an increase in loss factor and a decrease in dielectric constant. The dielectric constant increases with increasing water salinity while it decreases with increasing the turbidity of water. Further investigation is needed to determine the effect of other water quality indices on the dielectric properties of water prior to use the proposed system in practical application.