Instrumentation Mesure Métrologie

Vol. 22, No. 5, October, 2023, pp. 185-192

Journal homepage: http://iieta.org/journals/i2m

A Device for Measuring the Electrical Conductivity of Liquids Using Phase Sensitive
Detection Technique
Salim Kerai* , Youcef Hamoudi

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Technology, URMER, University of Tlemcen, Tlemcen 13000, Algeria

Corresponding Author Email: [email protected]

https://doi.org/10.18280/i2m.220501 ABSTRACT

Received: 3 July 2023 The quantification of electrical conductivity in fluids is integral to various applications,
Revised: 21 August 2023 including water engineering, biomedical, and industrial sectors. This study introduces an
Accepted: 1 September 2023 innovative methodology harnessing phase-sensitive detection to assess conductance,
Available online: 31 October 2023 thereby nullifying the coupling capacitances' interference between the probe cell's metallic
electrodes. The devised electronic conditioning circuit incorporates a 1 kHz sinusoidal
voltage source, an admittance-to-voltage converter, a lock-in amplifier, and a
Keywords: microcontroller/LCD interface. Calibrations were performed over two ranges, 1 mS/cm
electrical conductivity, probe cell, capacitive and 20 mS/cm, utilizing precise combinations of resistors, capacitors, and adjustable
influence, phase sensitive detection, resistors. The experimental findings were juxtaposed with a standard commercial
conductance, lock-in amplifier, calibration, conductometer across various solutions - calibration solutions, electrolyte solutions (NaCl,
standard solution, precision resistor KCl, CaCl2, MgSO4), and different water treatment room solutions at a hemodialysis
center (Carbon filter, water softener, Reverse osmosis, Dialysate). The relative error in the
measured conductivity was derived, with a maximum value of 1.45% noted. This error
margin is inferior to those reported by many commercial conductivity meters, suggesting
improved accuracy of our method.

1. INTRODUCTION corresponds to an alternating (sinusoidal or square) voltage VS

applied between electrodes in order to generate the electric
The electrical conductivity is one of basic electrical current IS given by Ohm’s law:
parameters of fluids and solids. The measurement of this
parameter is very important for water, industrial and VS =R IS (1)
biomedical engineering to provide information about ions
concentration. Thus, the density of electrical conducting or
materials is determined indirectly from measurements of
electrical conductivity. IS =G VS (2)
In water treatment, it is used for monitoring
demineralization process. In electrowinning, the conductivity where the conductance G is the reciprocal of the resistance R
of the electrolyte directly influences the quality of the primary of probe cell.
metal related to current efficiency [1]. The electric field between electrodes due to voltage VS
In battery industry, the design of cells and thermal balance causes the ions of solution to move back and forth with
is enhanced by measuring the electrical conductivity of the conductance G producing an alternating current IS.
electrolyte [2]. Electrical conductivity is directly calculated from a
In food industry, electrical conductivity measurement is measurement of the corresponding conductance G. In the case
related to food characteristics such as free water and contents of homogeneous dimensions G is given by:
concentration [3]. For example, the concentration of
monosodium glutamate (MSG) is evaluated by electrical 𝐴
𝐺=𝜎 = 𝜎𝐾 (3)
conductivity to study these effects on the body's organs [4]. 𝑑
In geotechnical engineering, electrical conductivity sensors
have been used for monitoring correlation of changes in soil with
conductivity and water content during cyclic wetting and
drying of the soil [5]. 𝐴
𝐾= (4)
In biomedical engineering, biological parameters are 𝑑
explored via electrical conductivity such as skin and blood
plasma. In hemodialysis applications, it is used for monitoring then
the concentration of solutions in water treatment room and the
dialysate in dialysis machine [6]. =K G (5)
The conductivity  is extracted from conductance G of a
probe cell based on metal electrodes. This conductance where  is the electrical conductivity, d is the distance between

185
the electrodes, A is their section, and K is the cell constant. In electrical conductivity meter with two measurement ranges of
the case when the effective cross-section of the cell A is conductivity  (20 mS/cm and 1 mS/cm) and accuracy of
variable with d, a cell constant has also an invariable value K. 1.45%. The proposed device consists of a sinusoidal voltage
In general, this value must not be calculated by geometric source, an admittance to voltage converter, a phase detection
dimensions of cell due to the leakage of the electric field at the sensitive stage and microcontroller/LCD card.
ends of the electrode plates. It must be determined by a
calibration with standard liquid of known conductivity. Note
that electrodes of probe cell are generally based on titanium or
stainless steel which are more effective than graphite and
platinum [7].
The aim of the present work is to propose a new device to
eliminate the problems encountered in many conditioning
techniques. This device measures electrical conductivity 
based on a 1 kHz single sinusoidal source, an admittance to
voltage converter and a lock-in amplifier using a technique
known as phase sensitive detection to eliminate
electrodes/solution capacitance. A microcontroller is used to
calculate electrical conductivity and send his value to LCD for
display.
The precision resistors in parallel with capacitors were used
to simulate electrical conductivity and calibrate the proposed
device by using adjustable precision resistors to achieve
accuracy of 1.45% which is generally 2% in commercial
conductivity meters. Finally, the experimental results obtained
by different solutions are showed and discussed.

2. CONDITIONING TECHNIQUES

The role of conditioning circuits is to extract the value of

conductance G because it is directly related to Electrical
conductivity  (Eq. (5)). The most conditioning circuits used
for measuring the conductance G are the bridge techniques like
Wheatstone bridge which must verify equilibrium conditions.
Generally, the electrodes/solution system is represented by
complex admittance that is a conductance G (real part) in
parallel with capacitance C (imaginary part). Different
transformer bridges are used for measuring the phase shift
between the current and voltage in probe cell with the aim to Figure 1. Block diagram of proposed device
eliminate capacitive current injected in complex admittance
[8-11]. The voltage source is an oscillator that produces a signal
These bridge techniques are not able to measure rapid whose frequency f is 1 kHz at constant amplitude (VSR or
variations of conductivity and rapid changes in solution VSR2). This signal is the input of the admittance to voltage
concentration because the measurement requires the balancing converter which provides an output sinusoidal voltage 𝑉̅𝑌
of the bridges for fixed values of passive components (resistors proportional to complex admittance 𝑌̅ of solution/electrodes
and capacitors) constituting of the bridge. The precision of system that is composed of conductance G with parallel of
measurement of conductivity is limited by the accuracy of the capacitor C. Thus,
value of passive components.
By using square-wave source and Fourier transforms 𝑉̅𝑌 = 𝐾
̅𝑌 𝑌̅ (6)
calculations, the conductance G can be estimated from
complex admittance. This method measures rapid changes in ̅𝑌 is the conversion factor and 𝑌̅ is given by:
where, 𝐾
conductivity but it requires complex programs and it is
difficult to implement this solution in compact device [12]. 𝑌̅ = 𝐺 + 𝑗2𝜋𝑓𝐶 (7)
The proposed device is capable to measure rapid changes of
conductivity by using an admittance to voltage converter The output signal of this converter is applied to the phase
which does not require equilibrium conditions. A lock-in sensitive detection based on lock-in amplifier to extract a
amplifier is used to eliminate capacitive influence of conductance G from 𝑌̅.
electrodes/solution system and extract value of conductance G The output signal is DC voltage which is proportional to
from complex admittance. A simple program is implemented value of G. This DC voltage is given by:
in microcontroller to calculate electrical conductivity.
𝑉𝐺 = 𝐾𝐺 𝐺 (8)
3. CONDUCTIVITY MEASUREMENT SYSTEM
where, KG is the factor that depends on components of lock-in
The Figure 1 shows the block diagram of proposed amplifier consisting of an analog multiplier followed by a

186
lowpass filter. The DC level at the output (pin 2 of XR2206) is
The voltage VG is converted to the electrical conductivity  approximately the same as the DC bias at Pin 3. This DC level
from K cell constant by microcontroller using equation: which is not suitable for polarization of cell probe is removed
by first order passive high-pass filter RV2C3. The cutoff
=K G (9) frequency is given as:

This microcontroller is also used to select two measurement 1

𝑓𝐻 = (11)
ranges of  (20 mS/cm and 1 mS/cm) and display on LCD the 2𝜋𝑅𝑉2 𝐶3
calculated electrical conductivity.
This filter has two sinusoidal outputs. The first (pin 2 of RV2)
is used as the reference signal 𝑉̅𝑆𝑅 in lock-in amplifier and is
4. DESIGN OF THE CONDITIONING CIRCUIT adjusted by RV1. The second (pin 3 of RV2) is adjusted by RV2.
A double switch (DSW) is used to send each of the two
4.1 The sinusoidal voltage source outputs 𝑉̅𝑆 (pins 1 and 3 of DSW) to the next stage (pin 2 of
DSW) and select in pin 5 of DSW which is the digital input
The use of the sinusoidal voltage source allows to avoid the D4 of microcontroller one of two ranges of measurement 1
electrolysis of solution which generates errors in measured mS/cm and 20 mS/cm.
electrical conductivity as the case of DC polarization. On the
other hand, this source is applied to probe cell and serves as 4.2 The admittance to voltage converter
the reference to lock-in amplifier. As a result, the phase shift
between the output of admittance to voltage converter and the The configuration of the admittance to voltage converter
lock-in reference corresponds to the phase of admittance 𝑌̅. Y/V is a non-inverting operational amplifier (1/2 TL082) as
shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Circuit of Y/V converter

Figure 2. Sinusoidal voltage source
The voltage at the inverting (-) input will be the same as at
the non-inverting (+) input. The sinusoidal voltage 𝑉̅𝑆 is then
The configuration of sinusoidal voltage source is shown in
Figure 2. It uses a sinusoidal oscillator based on XR-2206 that indirectly applied to probe cell whose admittance is 𝑌̅ . Its
is a function generator integrated circuit capable of producing current 𝐼𝑆̅ flows into resistor RV3.
stable output waveforms (sine, square, triangle, ramp) with The output of this stage is the voltage 𝑉̅𝑌 across RV3:
low total harmonic distortion and amplitude and frequency
adjusted by external resistors making it appropriate for the 𝑉̅𝑌 = 𝑅𝑉3 𝐼𝑆̅ (12)
designed device.
Frequency of operation can be selected over a range of 0.01 where,
Hz to more than 1 MHz and can be adjusted by the external
capacitor, C1, across Pin 5 and 6, and by the resistor, R2, 𝐼𝑆̅ = 𝑌̅ 𝑉̅𝑆 (13)
connected to either Pin 7 or 8. The frequency is given as [13]:
then,
1
𝑓= (10) 𝑉̅𝑌 = 𝑅𝑉3 𝑉̅𝑆 𝑌̅=𝐾
̅𝑌 𝑌̅ (14)
𝑅2 𝐶1
̅𝑌 is the conversion factor given by:
where, 𝐾
Output sinusoidal amplitude (pin 2 of XR2206) is directly
proportional to the adjustable resistance RV1 connected on pin
̅𝑌 = 𝑅𝑉3 𝑉̅𝑆
𝐾 (15)
3 of XR2206.

187
 1
4.3 The phase-sensitive detection VG= ×KM KY VSR×G (23)
2

This stage uses a lock-in amplifier to detect the phase  of ̅𝑌 = 𝑅𝑉3 𝑉̅𝑆 ), the expression of VG can be rewritten
Using (𝐾
admittance 𝑌̅ and measure the conductance G from 𝑉̅𝑌 . As as:
shown in Figure 4, this stage is composed of analog multiplier
and low-pass filter. VG=KG×G (24)

where,
1
KG= ×KM ×RV3×VS×VSR (25)
2

The first term with frequency 2f is removed using first order

passive low-pass filter R7C6. The cutoff frequency is given as:

1
𝑓𝐿 = (26)
2𝜋𝑅7 𝐶6

4.4 Stage of the microcontroller and LCD

Figure 4. Lock-in amplifier circuit based on AD633 In this stage, the ATMEGA 328P microcontroller is used to
multiplier and low-pass filter read analog signal VG (pin A0) from the follower amplifier
(2/2 TL082) connected with the output of low-pass filter R7C6
The voltage 𝑉̅𝑌 is the complex amplitude of the input vy as shown in Figure 5.
(between pin1 et pin 2) of AD633 analog multiplier. The 𝑉̅𝑆𝑅
is the complex amplitude of the reference signal vSR (pin 2 of
XR2206) and is applied to pin 3 of AD633. Then,

vSR=VSR cos(2ft+SR) (16)

and

vy=VY cos(2ft+y) (17)

The output of analog multiplier (pin 6) is the product of two

sine waves vSR and vy given by [14]:

vM=KM ×VSR cos(2ft)×VY cos(2ft+y)

(18)
=KM KYVSR×Y× cos(2ft)×cos(2ft+y)
Figure 5. Interfacing circuit measurement with ATMEGA
where, KM=0.1 V-1 is the multiplication factor of AD633. 328P and The LM016L LCD
So that,
1 The analog-to-digital converter (ADC) inside the
vM= KM KYVSRY [cos(4ft+y+SR)+cos(y-SR)] (19) microcontroller converts this DC voltage to 1024 discrete
2
levels. The potentiometer RV4 is used as a voltage divider to
Since the two inputs vSR and vy of the analog multiplier are select value of reference voltage in pin REF of ADC.
at exactly the same frequency, the first term of vM is at The values of VG, KM, RV3, VS and VSR are used in the
frequency of 2f and the second term is a DC voltage given by: program to calculate value of conductance G. Therefore,
electrical conductivity  is calculated from G by using the
1
VG= ×KM KY VSR×Y×cos(y-SR) (20) value of cell constant K trough equations:
2
1
The phase  of admittance 𝑌̅ can be determined from Eq. KG= ×KM ×RV3×VS×VSR (27)
2
(14), then y=SR+ and VG is given by:
𝑉𝐺
1 𝐺= (28)
VG=KM KYVSR×Y× ×cos (21) 𝐾𝐺
2

Since the conductance G is defined as the real part of 𝑌̅, then, =K G (29)

The pin 5 of double switch DSW in electronic circuit (see

G=Y×cos (22)
Figure 2) is connected with digital input (D4) of
microcontroller to select range of electrical conductivity to 1
The DC voltage is obtained as:
mS/cm if D4 is at 5 V level and VS at 2 V. If D4 is in 0 V level
and VS at 100 mV the range is selected to 20 mS/cm.

188
 The LM016L LCD is used for displaying electrical detection circuit is removed by first order passive low-pass
conductivity. The 4-bit mode is used to send data to LCD and filter R7C6. For R7=10 kΩ and C6=10 µF, the cutoff frequency
R/W needs to be set to low level. The pin 3 is connected to fL is 1.6 Hz calculated by Eq. (26).
potentiometer RV5 (10 kΩ) to control the contrast and In microcontroller, the potentiometer RV4 (10 kΩ) is used as
brightness of the LCD. a voltage divider to set reference voltage (pin REF) of ADC to
Table 1 showed component values for different stages of 1 V which is the maximum of voltage VG for the two ranges.
designed device. If the D4 (pin 5 of DSW) is selected at 5 V the value of V S
which is used in formula Eq. (27) of KG factor is 2 V and 100
Table 1. Component values of designed device mV if D4 is at 0 V.

Stage Component Value 5.2 Relative precision of measurement

R1 200 Ω
R2 10 kΩ From Eq. (27), Eq. (28) and Eq. (29) the formula of relative
R3 5.1 kΩ precision of measured electrical conductivity  is given by:
R4 5.1 kΩ
Sinusoidal Voltage RV1 50 kΩ
∆𝜎 ∆𝐾 ∆𝑉𝐺 ∆𝐾𝑀 ∆𝑅𝑉3 ∆𝑉𝑆𝑅 ∆𝑉𝑆
Source RV2 20 kΩ 𝜀𝜎 = = + + + + + (30)
C1 100 nF 𝜎 𝐾 𝑉𝐺 𝐾𝑀 𝑅𝑉3 𝑉𝑆𝑅 𝑉𝑆
C2 1 µF
C3 10 µF A conductivity cell with K=1.0 cm -1 cell constant is the
Oscillator XR2206 most commonly used because it measures low to high
R5 100 Ω±0.1% conductivity. Most conductivity cells available on the
R6 2 kΩ±0.1% industry today are delivered with certified cell constants from
Y/V Converter
RV3 10 kΩ
the manufacturer. The user can simply consider:
Op-Amplifier 1/2 TL082
Multiplier AD633
Phase-Sensitive
R7 10 kΩ
∆𝐾
Detection ≈0 (31)
C6 10 µF 𝐾
follower
2/2 TL082 The maximum relative of analog to digital conversion is
amplifier
Microcontroller Microcontroller ATMEGA 328P given by:
and LCD LCD LM016L
RV4 10 kΩ ∆𝑉𝐺 1
RV5 10 kΩ = ≈ 0.1% (32)
𝑉𝐺 1024

The AD633 analog multiplier is laser calibrated to a

5. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
guaranteed accuracy of 10 V scaling reference and KM
multiplication factor KM=1/10 V=0.1 V-1. The maximum value
5.1 Setup of the conditioning circuit
of relative precision of KM is [14]:
According to the specification of XR2206, oscillator ∆𝐾𝑀
temperature stability is optimum for 4 kΩ<R<200 kΩ and = 0.25% (33)
1000 pF<C<100 µF. For this raison the values of R2 and C1 are 𝐾𝑀
10 kΩ and 100 nF respectively and the frequency f is equal to
The VSR and VS are measured by digital multimeter with 0.5%
1 kHz calculated by Eq. (10).
maximum relative precision, then:
The DC level of output (pin 2) of XR2206 oscillator is
suppressed by first order passive high-pass filter RV2 C3. For
∆𝑉𝑆𝑅 ∆𝑉𝑆
RV2=20 kΩ and C3=10 µF, the cutoff frequency fH is 0.8 Hz = = 0.5% (34)
calculated by Eq. (11). 𝑉𝑆𝑅 𝑉𝑆
In this device, two ranges to measure electrical conductivity
are used. The first is 1 mS/cm and is adjusted by RV1 (50 kΩ) So, the maximum relative precision of measured electrical
to set VS output (pin 2 of double switched) at 2 V. The second conductivity max can be reduced to
is 20 mS/cm and is adjusted by potentiometer RV2 (20 kΩ) to
set VS output (pin 2 of double switched) at 100 mV. ∆𝜎𝑚𝑎𝑥 ∆𝑅𝑉3𝑚𝑎𝑥
𝜀𝜎𝑚𝑎𝑥 = = ±1.35 % + (35)
The cell conductivity employed in this work has a cell 𝜎 𝑅𝑉3
constant K equal to 1 cm-1. As a result, the maximum value of
measured conductance is G=1 mS if VS=2 V and G=20 mS if In the case of ∆𝑅𝑉3𝑚𝑎𝑥 /𝑅𝑉3 =±0.1%, the value of εσmax is
VS=100 mV. For these two cases, the maximum current which ±1.45%.
flows cell is 2 mA and the RV3 is selected to 5 kΩ to avoid
saturation of output of operational amplifier (1/2 TL 082). This 5.3 Measurement results
maximum output is then at 12 V for 1 mS/cm range and 10.10
V for 1 mS/cm range. The electronic circuit of designed device can be seen in
The output of pin 2 of RV2 is used as the reference signal VSR Figure 6. A 9 V DC battery is connected to SX1308 DC-DC
in lock-in amplifier and is adjusted by RV1.The value of VSR is step-up boost converter to provide 12 V DC. The ICL7660 is
2 V. used to perform conversion from DC positive voltage +12 V
The harmonic with frequency 2f (2 kHz) at output of phase- to negative voltage -12 V. The voltage regulator 7805 is used

189
to convert +12 V DC to +5 V DC. Theses DC voltages are used Table 2 showed conductivity measurements M for different
to power integrated circuits of fabricated device. values of RSCS where GS is the conductance that is reciprocal
of RS and GM is conductance corresponding to measured
conductivity M with GM=M/K and K=1.
The impedances of capacitors CS: 1µF, 100 nF and 10 nF
which simulated conductive solutions/capacitive influence at
f=1 kHz respectively correspond to 160 Ω, 1.60 kΩ and 16 kΩ.
As can be seen in Table 2, the measured conductivity values
are directly related to simulation resistance value and are
independent of the capacitance values.
These results confirm that the fabricated device only
measures the electrical conductivity without the capacitive
influence in probe cell.
From Table 2, the maximum value of relative difference MS
between GS and GM for different values of RS and CS was 0.7%
which is less than the value of tolerance of RS.
The fabricated device has been used to measure
conductivities of the NaCl, KCl, CaCl2, MgSO4 for different
concentrations maintained at 25℃.

Table 3. Measurement results of different solutions

Solution F C FC %
NaCl 17.90 18.36
2.57
Figure 6. Photos of the designed device for measuring 9 g/L mS/cm mS/cm
electrical conductivity NaCl 12 9.21
2.68
4.5 g/L mS/cm mS/cm
KCl 12.81 13.16
According to Eq. (35), the precision multiturn 2.73
10 g/L mS/cm mS/cm
potentiometer RV3= 10 kΩ was used and adjusted at 5 kΩ to KCl 7.20 7.39
achieve the minimum of  and to calibrate the device in two 5 g/L mS/cm mS/cm
2.64
ranges 20 mS/cm and 1 mS/cm by using commercial standard CaCl2 9.114 9.351
2.60
solutions (74.0 µS/cm±0.7% and 1.406 mS/cm±0.5%). 10 g/L mS/cm mS/cm
Standard solutions are susceptible to contamination from CaCl2 4.974 5.102
2.57
atmospheric carbon dioxide and thus increasing the 10 g/L mS/cm mS/cm
conductivity. To overcome this problem, the precision MgSO4 6.39 6.57
2.82
15 g/L mS/cm mS/cm
resistors (R5=100 Ω ±0.1% and R6=2 kΩ ±0.1%) are employed
MgSO4 3.754 3.836
instead of probe cell (see Figure 3.) to simulate conductive 7.5 g/L mS/cm mS/cm
2.18
solutions (10 mS/cm±0.1% and 500 µS/cm±0.1%).
To check the reproducibility and accuracy of measurements Table 3 showed conductivity measurement results that are
and the effectiveness of phase sensitive detection, a compared with those measured by commercial conductivity
combination of resistors RS and capacitor CS was used to meter (Shengmeiyu TDS&EC).
simulate conductive solutions/capacitive influence in probe From Table 3, the minimum and maximum relative
cell.
differences FC of conductivity measurements between
fabricated device F and commercial conductivity meter C
Table 2. Conductivity measurement results of simulated
were respectively 2.18% and 2.82%.
solutions

RS CS M GM GS MS
1 10.04 10.04 10 mS 0.4
µF mS/cm mS ±1% %
100 Ω 100 10.04 10.04 10 mS 0.4
±1% nF mS/cm mS ±1% %
10 10.04 10.04 10 mS 0.4
nF mS/cm mS ±1% %
1 100.6 100.6 100 µS 0.6
µF µS/cm µS ±1% %
10 kΩ 100 100.6 100.6 100 µS 0.6
±1% nF µS/cm µS ±1% %
10 100.6 100.6 100 µS 0.6
nF µS/cm µS ±1% %
1 9.93 9.93 10 µS 0.7
µF µS/cm µS ±1% %
100
100 9.93 9.93 10 µS 0.7
kΩ
nF µS/cm µS ±1% %
±1%
10 9.93 9.93 10 µS 0.7
nF µS/cm µS ±1% % Figure 7. Calibration curve for concentration of NaCl

190
 The concentrations of electrolyte solutions can be solution is displayed on The LM016L LCD after processing
determined by measuring conductivity of the solution [15-18]. by microcontroller.
The example of calibration curve obtained by fabricated The high accuracy of proposed conductivity meter is related
device is shown in Figure 7 corresponding to NaCl solution. to the high relative precision of values of KM, RV3, VS, VSR, VG
The equation of calibration is given by: and K.
The experimental results show that design of this device is
M=KC C+M0 (36) successful. The level of agreement between values of
simulated conductive solutions with tolerance 1% and
where, measured conductivity (maximum is 0.7%) is satisfactory to
C is the concentration of solution, mg/L; confirm the measurement accuracy of the developed device.
M is measured conductivity, mS/cm; The effective calibration can be performed by 0.1%
KC=0.0020 mS.L.mg-1.cm-1 is the calibration constant; precision resistors and maximum value of relative error of
M0=0.0796 mS/cm is the initial conductivity. measured conductivity is 1.45% which is lower than that of
This equation is obtained by least square curve fitting. The commercial conductivity meters (generally 2%; see for
mean relative error was 1.32% and the coefficient of example technical specifications of Elcometer, Extech, Runge
determination was 0.9998. or Hanna conductivity meters).
The device has also been used to measure conductivities of To verify compliance with IEC61326 EMC/IEC60610
the hemodialysis solutions, for which the values of safety standards, the device should pass the EMC/safety tests
conductivities are known [19-21]. approved by ISO 17025 accredited laboratories. In accordance
Table 4 showed conductivity measurement results that are with IEC61010 standard, the measuring category of this device
compared with those measured by commercial conductivity is CAT I because it is used to measure the conductivity of
meter (Shengmeiyu TDS&EC). solutions without connection to the mains which cannot be
allocated to categories CAT II and CAT IV. The class of
Table 4. Measurement results of different solutions electrical safety is III because the input voltage is 9 V DC and
is not at a hazardous level and thus the user does not need to
Solution F C FC % be protected from this input voltage.
1.021 1.048 The performance of fabricated device can be improved by
Carbon filter 2.64 auto range selection based on analog multiplexers and voltage
mS/cm mS/cm
Water softener
841 857
1.90
dividers connected to the output of oscillator. In order to
µS/cm µS/cm miniaturize the device, the sinewave of oscillator can be
67.00 68.57 generated by using Pulse Width Modulation PWM in
Reverse osmosis 2.34
µS/cm µS/cm microcontroller and active low-passe filter.
14.60 14.90
Dialysate 2.05 Finally, the 20 mS/cm and 1 mS/cm measurement ranges
mS/cm mS/cm
are most suitable for industrial and biomedical applications
such as assuring water quality based upon ISO standards and
The ISO23500 standard recommends daily measuring of
facilitating maintenance by biomedical engineers in center
conductivity both pre- and post -filtration and percentage
hemodialysis.
efficiency in the water reverse osmosis unit. Conductivity of
dialysate should be checked with calibrated measuring device.
Conductivity measurement ensures proper water-to-
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
concentrate ratio of the dialysate [22, 23].
From Table 4, the minimum and maximum relative
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the
difference FC of conductivity measurements between
University Hospital Center of Tlemcen for supporting this
fabricated device F and commercial conductivity meter C work and providing electrolytes solutions.
were respectively 1.90% and 2.64%.

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