ELGA Process Water’s latest monitoring tool to help in microbiological control of water systems is a simple to operate test system that gives a rapid indication of total viable bacteria count – a test which normally takes two or three days – in under an hour. This means that system performance can be monitored daily, and any deviations from normal conditions detected early.
A membrane filter in the Bactiquant-water tool concentrates bacteria from a measured sample volume of water. A fluorescent-labelled enzyme substrate is added and the filter unit is incubated for 10–30 minutes allowing bacterial enzymes to react with the substrate to form a fluorescent product. The number of bacteria is estimated by measuring the amount of fluorescence using a hand-held fluorometer. The signal produced is directly proportional to the amount of bacteria present, and scientific studies have documented good correlations between Bactiquant-water and conventional plate counts and microscopic methods.
The Bactiquant-water package includes sampling equipment, membrane filter, enzyme substrate and fluorometer. It also comes with its own FDA compatible database software which establishes a baseline for normal operation and, using statistical process control based on ISO 11462-1, generates ‘normal’, ‘alarm’ and ‘action level’ signals.