How Can Liquid-Borne Particle Counters Be Applied?A person turns on the faucet and fresh, potable water ows out— it comes from the state-of-the-art water supply in Japan which we take for granted. Tracing the water pipeline upstream, we inevitably arrive at a regional water treatment plant. In recent years, a phy-toplankton counter developed by Rion has gone into operation at such puri-cation plants. e counter makes auto-matic measurements of phytoplankton (algae) including pico plankton (size: 0.2 µm –2 µm) suspended in liquid. It requires no dyeing or other sample preprocessing. e system enables real-time monitoring of water safety, reduces costs and labor at water treat-ment plants. purication plants. It’s currently being deployed around Japan.Kazuma Sekimoto at the Technical Development Center was one of the key individuals involved since the start of this development. His job began by researching markets in which Rion’s technologies could be applied.“We looked at how particles count-ers that were already on the market could be used in novel ways in new markets. What I set my eyes on was counting microorganisms.”Sekimoto focused rst on the eld of articial dialysis. Blood purication involves the use of a dialysis uid, which is prepared using tap water. He assessed the need for bacterial contam-ination detection for tap water. From there, he ultimately found his way to water treatment plants.“I’d been pursuing research on tap water and found that phytoplankton negatively impacts water purication, causing serious problems at purica-tion plants. at’s when I began explor-ing the possibility of using Rion’s technologies to create a measurement system that could be used at purica-tion plants. I also discovered that cli-mate change was a major factor here. Phenomena associated with climate change, like climate warming and extreme rainstorms, lead to massive proliferation of phytoplankton in lakes, rivers, and streams, which disrupts the XL-10A picoplankton counterThis is the world’s rst measuring instru-ment capable of performing real-time measurements of counts and sizes of phytoplankton. Used together with an automated dilution device, the XL-10A can take measurements of various types of treated water, from raw water to ltered water.PROJECT STORYA Documentary of Product Development at RionInterview and article by Editorial Committee2Going behind the scenes of the development of a phytoplankton counter for water treatment plants
元のページ ../index.html#4