Why should we ensure the safety of drinking water?

Water is an elementary human need. Water is connecting to every possible form of life on earth. Each person on this planet requires at least 10 liters of safe, clean and accessible water in a day for drinking. 

Safe drinking water can be defined as water that does not have any significant risk present in it for health over a long period of consumption. Safe water not necessarily is pure, it may have some impurities such as some trail of salts like calcium, magnesium, carbonates and others present in it which is injuries to health. 

Millions of people die every year because of no access to safe drinking water to many water-related issues like diarrhea cholera, malaria, hepatitis and so on. There are basic norm, standards and criterion for safe drinking water. 

Proper examination is necessary to be done to ensure that water does not have any sort of harmful chemicals or substances and is perfectly fit for drinking and consumption.

In any case, if the water contains any slightest amount of harmful substance, it can cause trouble for the consumer. 

This is because large organizations should conduct drinking water analysis regularly and individuals should also ensure that the water they are consuming is properly tested and safe.

Sometimes, the water purification system fails to identify the toxin levels present in water and in order to keep away from this problem, it is important contacting an authorized drinking water testing and getting all systems checked for efficiency in safe water drinking.

Physical Testing, most of the parameters which are physical can simply be observed like color, smell, odor and taste. 

Turbidity is the most important parameter commonly used to measure high levels of turbidity tend to reduce the effectiveness of some water treatment technologies. 

In turbidity, tube water is slowly poured then placing the head over the tube about 10 to 20 cm above try to see the bottom of the tube.

Now water is poured until it becomes hard to see the bottom and then turbidity is read from the scale on the side of the tube. There are digital turbidimeters available too.  

Chemical Testing is merely not possible to test for all chemicals that could lead to serious health problems, neither it is necessary as most of the chemicals are rarely present in water and major of them result from human contamination.

However, there are three chemicals that cause serious health problems. These are fluoride, arsenic which occurs naturally and nitrate which is very commonly used in fertilizers. While testing, these three are prioritized.

The second priority for drinking water testing is that it is free of dissolved solids and metals (iron and manganese).

• Colorimetric method – Chemical agents are added which reacts with chemical parameter interested. The product that formed absorbs the light at a wavelength. Then the water sample is analyzed in a colorimeter and compared with known standards.

• Electrode Methods – Ion-selective electrodes to measure the concentration of certain ions in a water sample with electrode and meter PH can easily be measured.

• Chromatography – Samples are passed through channels of columns containing specific coating that particularly retains definite types of chemicals. Then different compounds are passed through the column at different speeds that depend on their affinity to coating or packaging. At the exit of a column, a detector quantifies the concentration of a chemical. Many types of chromatography are liquid chromatography, ion chromatography, gas chromatography.

• Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS) – AAS is used in order to analyze the presence of metals. Samples are heated electrically in a graphite furnace or inflame and then concentration are determined.

Microbiological Testing, the most serious health risk for the public is associated with water in the microbiological contamination. The pathogen in water such as bacteria, protozoa, viruses can cause so many hazardous health problems. 

Three main microbiological testing methods are

• Presence/ Absence (P-A), is a qualitative test depending on color change to show the presence of contamination.
• Most Probable Number (MPN), estimates the number of an indicator like bacteria that are present in a water sample.
• Membrane Filtration, most accurate to determine the number of indicators in the water sample

Probable Test Methods

• Strips (Reagent) Test, single-use strips to measure the different chemical contaminants that change color. Dipping strips into a sample of water and swishing it around, waiting for a short period and then the color of the strip is compared with a color chart to identify the concentration level of the chemical.
• Color Disc Comparator 
• Colorimeter and photometer
• Digital Meters

Sigma various range of water quality testing and analysis services to fulfil regulatory requirements. Sigma offers advanced methods for water quality testing services which ensures accuracy and quality. 

Contact the Sigma Team for Any Inquiries 

 Visit Website:- https://www.sigmatest.org 

 Call on this number +91-9560222333 

 Mail ID- mail@sigmatest.org