The instrument will perform colorimetric titrations of water in order to determine its total hardness.

it will be composed of a sampe flow cell,  a flowcell photometer with integrated stirring which will relies on a tcs3200 and led source,  a double peristaltic pump for dosing sample, cleaning solution, standard solution, titrant and indicator solution, 4 3-way valves, a vacuum drain for liquid waste; 1mm PTFE tubing with custom compression connectors will be used for plumbing; the sample volume used for analysis will be as low as 0.5 ml + some addidional milliliters for priming and washing the instrument; reagent consumption will be kept to a minimum by avoiding the need to prime and/or wash reagent paths in each analysis; the sistem will be microcontroller-driven and will be radio connected to a pc; it will have the capability of performing grab sample analysis.

Description of the analysis sequence:

1. at the same time the sample line, the flowcell and the sample cell are washed and primed with fresh sample
2. during the washing cycle the photometer takes a blank reading
3. the cell is emptied and filled with a set volume of a premixed buffer/indicator/sample mixture
4. magnetic stirring is activated and titrant is added until the endpoint is reached
5. the system is flushed again