Abstract:
Ultraviolet-Visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy is widely used in in-situ seawater chemical oxygen demand (COD) measurement owing to its simplicity, rapidity, and pollution-free advantages. However, it is susceptible to interference from complex water components in coastal turbid water, which can result in a significant decrease in COD measurement accuracy. To improve the accuracy of COD measurement using UV-Vis spectroscopy in turbid water, an improved compensation method for COD in-situ measurement is proposed. The influence of turbidity on COD measurement is firstly analyzed using lab-prepared solutions with varying concentrations of marine sediments, it is found that a dynamic compensation method can be built based on the relationship between slopes of COD concentrations versus absorption at 254 nm and turbidity which can be well modeled by a least-squares fitting, and an accurate in-situ COD measurement in turbid coastal water can be achieved. Using mixed water samples with turbidity (0-200 NTU) and COD concentrations (1-75 mg/L) prepared in laboratory, it is demonstrated that the results derived by the compensation method have a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.82 mg/L, and the determination coefficients (
R2) are
0.9964 and
0.9978 for low and high COD concentrations, respectively. By collecting field samples with turbidity (6.91-107.05 NTU) and COD concentrations (0.96-9.15 mg/L) in a costal aquaculture farm, the COD measurements by this study has a relative error range of −4.27% to 6.64%, the RMSE of 0.25 mg/L, and the
R2 of
0.9939. Compared to uncompensated, direct subtraction compensation, and method for compensating peak height reduction, the proposed method in this study significantly reduces measurement error and effectively improves the accuracy of in-situ COD measurement in turbid water, and has the potential to be applied in the development of in-situ instruments for COD measurements.