Monitoring Water from the Deluge Sprinkler System at SpaceX

Deluge sprinklers are specialised fire protection systems that rapidly flood high risk areas with large volumes of water. They are installed at sites where there is a potential for large, rapidly spreading fires, such as chemical plants and aircraft hangars.

SpaceX uses a water deluge system to cool and protect its launchpad during liftoff. After each activation the resulting water flows into a holding lagoon on site.

After each use the resulting wastewater must be tested to determine if chemical oxygen demand (COD) levels are safe enough for discharge or if it requires expensive off-site treatment at a specialised facility. SpaceX recently incorporated a Mantech PeCOD into its workflow to measure COD levels in its deluge system lagoon.

Mantech’s revolutionary PeCOD analyser provides COD results correlated to biological oxygen demand (BOD) in just 10 minutes, as opposed to the traditional 5 or 7 day testing method for BOD. It also differs from traditional methods in that it does not use hazardous chemicals such as dichromate and mercury in COD testing, relying instead on photoelectrochemical oxidation using only salt and sugar reagents.

PeCOD is the fastest available method for quantifying COD. It offers a safe, green and reliable solution to wastewater monitoring, giving operators real-time insight into changing water quality.

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