A new design of equilibrator to monitor carbon dioxide in highly dynamic and turbid environments.

A new design of equilibrator for carbon dioxide monitoring in natural waters is described. It consists in a vertical tube filled with marbles through which water is flowing while equilibrating with a closed air circuit. It offers several advantages compared with classical equilibrators, among which is a fast response time (half-life constant approximately 30 s) and the potential to work in very turbid water. The proposed equilibrator is of particular interest to monitor carbon dioxide in coastal ecosystems, such as estuaries, which are known to be turbid and highly dynamic. Two performance tests and some field results are presented to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed system.