Development of automated pH monitoring & control system through USB Data Acquisition

The pH value is one of the most important chemical quantities as the acidity or alkalinity of a process medium plays a key role in many chemical or biological reactions as well as in mechanical/physical actions. The monitoring and control of pH value is instrumental in many processes including wastewater treatment, quality control for liquids and in helping water industry users ensure they meet regulatory limits for acidity and alkalinity when discharging water. It also covers a diverse range of applications like, in leather processing techniques in leather industries, checking and maintaining product quality in food, chemical, pharmaceutical and beverage industries and many other process industries. For instance, the effluents from leather processing techniques will be minimized by adopting automated pH monitoring and control. Hence this paper focuses on developing an automated pH Monitoring and Control system by using Data Acquisition Boards/Cards. In this system, the real time pH measurement of the process uses the virtual instrumentation concept (the software running on a computer combined with the instrumentation hardware).