Smart Water Management Platform Could Change How Plant Operators Stay on Top of Water ChallengesSmart Water Management Platform Could Change How Plant Operators Stay on Top of Water Challenges

Water utilities and industrial plants face ongoing challenges in monitoring water quality, prompting KETOS to develop SHIELD, an AI-driven platform that automates real-time detection of heavy metals, inorganics, and nutrients, with plans to expand into PFAS monitoring.

Arlene Karidis, Freelance writer

February 5, 2025

5 Min Read
KETOS
KETOS

Wastewater treatment plants, drinking water utilities, and industrial manufacturers routinely struggle with water quality monitoring. It’s a time- and labor-intensive job that requires staying on top of multiple complex and fluctuating chemistries. And all along, more little-understood constituents continue showing up in their streams.

Water management tech developer KETOS is working to make the job more manageable. It developed a platform that detects and monitors dozens of heavy metals, inorganics, and nutrients, and will soon go live with a plug-in module targeting PFAS.

Branded as SHIELD, the technology senses 36 compounds down to parts per billion. It happens in real time from one automated, centralized system, eliminating tedious tasks like static water testing and manual calibrations and reducing the inventory of equipment required to detect multiple constituents.

But SHIELD’s capabilities go beyond that.  The artificial intelligence (AI)-driven platform provides actionable insights.

At high level, here is how the technology, offered through a data as a service (DaaS) or subscription model, works. Sensors, robots, and machine learning work together to detect irregularities in given constituents; to analyze accruing data on the whole water matrix; and make predictions or decisions.
The monitoring system is integrated with the treatment itself.

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“That means if a facility had a problem with arsenic coming from groundwater for example, as soon as there is an anomaly the arsenic treatment system kicks in, lowering it to pre-programmed thresholds,” says Meena Sankaran, KETOS CEO.

Real-time alerts, synced with the specified thresholds for each parameter, keep operators up on changing trends.

Thresholds can be set below National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) limits. So, operators can lean on a buffer to remain in the green.

Nothing is constant in operators’ worlds. So, while there is one standard platform, it was designed for flexibility and adaptability. They can add or switch out chemicals they watch for as water compositions shift. That capability could change how testing is done, believes Sankaran.

“It takes pressure off of plant operators to have it all figured out,” she says.

Rather they can routinely make adjustments as fluctuations occur. They  watch and learn from how their tweaks impact the water matrix without running up lab bills or spending on scores of test analyzers.

“So, their focus is entirely on doing the best for water safety rather than worrying about how to stay on budget,” she says.

Related:A Snapshot of the Latest Wastewater Treatment Technologies

SHIELD is engineered to allow for integration of third-party data. 

“Whether the data is from a lab, generated on site by KETOS, or by another tool, we can incorporate it into our analytic and forecasting system to deliver the intelligence needed for accurate and thoughtful decision making,” says Sankaran.

Amir Cahn leads Smart Water Networks Forum (SWAN), a nonprofit trying to advance smart data-driven solutions in water, wastewater, and stormwater networks. Cahn anticipates that the DaaS model, combined with evolving techs like KETOS,’ will take water management further.

“Data-as-a-Service is transforming the way organizations gather, share, and interpret data by enabling them to access it on demand.

“I see more companies offering DaaS for water and wastewater applications, and more global utilities requesting DaaS within their proposals. The key benefit is shifting the risks of big data management from a utility to an outside provider based on service-level agreements, with penalties for poor performance,” he says.

Nearly half of SHIELD users tap into the platform to ensure they are treating water to standards for reuse. Others look for assurance that when they discharge effluent, they are in compliance with permit requirements.

Related:MOFGA Responds to EPA Announcement on Health Risks of PFAS in Sludge Fertilizer

Now public water systems have a new Environmental Protection  Agency (EPA)-directed charge: monitoring for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water. The agency set stringent thresholds—down to parts per trillion—for these two PFAS groups.

But today, PFAS detection technologies are nascent. Most companies are focused on removal. To fill the gap, KETOS is adding an automated PFAS module to SHIELD, slated to launch in 2026.

“Detection of PFOA and PFOS is very difficult, certainly to the EPA-mandated levels of parts per trillion. It will require a different sensing technology than those we leverage with other constituents. That’s what we are working to fine tune,” says Sankaran.

In the meantime, she has launched another platform addressing PFAS from another angle.

KETOS PRISM as it is called is a central repository of PFAS data aggregated from multiple sources. It was conceived to support stakeholders in water risk assessment, permit compliance monitoring, assessing for legal risk, and other work.

PRISM users can access comprehensive reports and/or a tool enabling them to plug in specific locations to retrieve lists of public water supplies identified as contaminated, as well as contamination risk ratings for those locations.

“We launched PRISM to enable organizations to analyze up-to-date, location-specific water quality data with accuracy. And so that they can transform that data into actionable insights,” says Sankaran.

Water expert Monica Ellis, CEO of Global Environment & Tech Foundation, is an advisor to KETOS and will be partnering with the company on an upcoming project.

“KETOS SHIELD is groundbreaking. Imagine having water quality lab results delivered in real time – not needing to send samples out. SHIELD delivers insights to help enterprises increase efficiency, reduce energy costs, and improve their overall operations,” she says.

Sankaran believes she will have her work cut out for her as more compounds hit regulators’ radar.

“We have the foundation to be able to expand as constituents that we are not even talking about today become critical. And we have the power of the data to define decision making for utilities who will need to deal with their water challenges.”

About the Author

Arlene Karidis

Freelance writer, Waste360

Arlene Karidis has 30 years’ cumulative experience reporting on health and environmental topics for B2B and consumer publications of a global, national and/or regional reach, including Waste360, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, Baltimore Sun and lifestyle and parenting magazines. In between her assignments, Arlene does yoga, Pilates, takes long walks, and works her body in other ways that won’t bang up her somewhat challenged knees; drinks wine;  hangs with her family and other good friends and on really slow weekends, entertains herself watching her cat get happy on catnip and play with new toys.

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