A new system for measuring electrical conductivity of water as a function of admittance

This paper presents a new system for measuring water conductivity as a function of electrophysical property (admittance). The system is cheap and its manufacturing is easy. In addition, it does not require any sort of electrolysis and calibration. The system consists of four electrodes made of silver (Ag 92.5 g to Cu 7.5 g) fixed in a plastic tube filled by water which allows the use of two and four electrode setups. The admittance (reciprocal of impedance) was measured for different water sources (distilled, rainfall, mineral, river and tap water) using different frequencies between 50 Hz and 100 kHz. These measurements were taken twice, first with four electrodes and then with two electrodes of two modes (inner and outer electrodes). The results showed good correlation between the measured admittance and the conductivity of all the water sources and the best correlation was found at low frequencies between 50 Hz and 20 kHz. The highest efficiency can be achieved by using the four electrode system which allows circumventing the effect of the electrode impedance. This result makes the system efficient compared to traditional conductivity meters which usually require high frequencies for good operation.