Public Health Engineering

Spaulding, Charles H.

doi:10.2105/ajph.21.12.1380

Cited by 13 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 5 publications

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“…J. ): Professor Fair, in a joint paper with Wells, has just explained the basis of his proposed method for determination of odor and tastes by means of progressive dilution with air or water, and recording as pO and 0 in the case of odors, and pT and T in the case of tastes (1). Odors and tastes in public water supplies are becoming increasingly important and any method of simple and accurate quantitative measure of these qualities is welcome to the waterworks operator.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Air‐Dilution Method of Odor Determination in Water Analysis

Fair

Wells

1934

Journal AWWA

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The direct quantitative chemical determination of most of the substances that impart odors to drinking water is rendered difficult and generally impossible by the wide variety and structural complexity of these substances as well as by the minute magnitudes of the concentrations in which they are significant. If odors were radiant in nature rather than corpuscular, some method of electrical amplification might solve the problem. As matters stand, however, the human nose is, at present, the most sensitive detecting instrument at our disposal and is likely to remain so for some time to come. Hence all systems of odor determination in water analysis so far developed call into play the use of the sense of smell of the observer. To place the determination on a quantitative basis, stricter than the present estimates included in Standard Methods of Water Analysis, a system of dilution of the odorous water with odor-free water has been proposed by Spaulding (1) and a system of dilution with air of the odor emanating from the water has been suggested by Fair (2). It is the purpose of this paper to describe a new instrument devised to simplify the air-dilution method and possibly also the waterdilution method and to comment on the reasoning underlying its design.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%