Dear All,

I am new in this group and I am also pretty new in water industry (4 months now).

I am assigned to build a state of the art water quality lab.
The purpose of this lab is to test our filter performance (water before and after filtration).

I would to receive some inputs on what instruments (the brand, type) I should purchase:
The instruments that I have on my lists are:
1. Turbiditymeter
2. Colorimeter
3. Conductivity meter
4. Particle Counter.

Any other suggestions? Which brand should I purchase? also what is good instrument to best bacteria in water (especially for E.Coli)?

Our budget is 150k USD

Thank you!

RyanWater:

It's 4th of July weekend here in the US and more than likely will be pretty slow in getting a response.  Nevertheless, what is the water going to be used for? drinking, laboratory reference water?  This will ultimately determine which analyses need to be performed.  E. Coli---I would recommend Colilert QuantiTray.

How many samples per day are you planning to analyze?  That will make a big difference as to the instrumentation you need.  If you are willing to do them all with a handheld meter, I would suggest a HF Scientific Turbidimeter and a VWR SympHony conductivity meter.  We use both and they are very durable.  If you would like to do this automated I would contact ManSci, http://www.mantech-inc.com/analytical/index.asp, and look into their titrasip units.  I can't comment on the colorimeter or particle counter as we don't use those.
Oh, and I second the recommendation for the coliform testing.

We are using a Merck brand turbidimeter, nothing fancy, and it seems to serve us well.  Can't recall the model but I've seen it rebranded elsewhere, so it is a common bench model.  But you really need to know what sort of water you intend to analyse, how often and what detection limit you need (that goes for all parameters you intend to measure).  

We also use a Hach EC bench meter and it has been excellent, well built, durable and accurate.  Again, the model number I forget (sorry).

Depending on what analytes you intend on measuring you might want to consider a photospectrometer in the visible region as you can also do turbidity on it.  Many different types about.

Our distilled water is generated by a basic boiler system, but it is only good for about 2L/hr.  The upside is that it is a fairly low cost item to purchase and low maintenance.  The downside is that it uses a constant (though low flow) stream of water to both condense the steam and keep the boiler topped up, and also it chews the power.

I agree with Victor regarding e-Coli, a very straightforward system, but remember you will need an incubator, sterile 100 ml specimen jars, a tray roller and a UV light box, most of which IDEXX would be able to supply.

Given the budget of 150K and not being in the business for long, I would consider contacting a water lab nearby (as long as they are not competitors!) and get someone in to go over your needs for a day.  They might not be able to detail every single thing but even if that visit costs you a few hundred dollars I think you will find it will be worth the money - instrument costs vary considerably and you can easily over-capitalise.  You might even get some info on companies they use for instruments and consumables - some promise the earth and deliver a charred wreck, that varies from really poor delivery times to unanswered emails about missing/wrong items, and worse still instruments that break and take months to repair, or cost a bomb to fix.  I am still a newbie having only been around in water labs for about 12 years and it is still a challenge setting up labs.