PETALING JAYA: The Penang Water Supply Corporation plans to commercialise its central laboratory water testing services.
Its chief executive officer Datuk Jaseni Maidinsa said the central laboratory, located at the Sungai Dua Water Treatment Plant, is seeking to venture beyond testing treated water for Penang.
“It has the capacity, expertise, and instrumentation to provide advanced water testing services to other water operators and public utility agencies that wish to test new raw water resources, verify public water safety, and ensure compliance with Health Ministry requirements.
“We can also serve high-tech manufacturers who require detailed and specific water quality tests to enable water-sensitive advanced manufacturing processes.”
He said while the corporation did not have an estimated revenue that it could gain from commercialising its laboratory, any amount it receives would be a bonus.
He added that other potential clients are government departments or agencies that require key data on water samples collected from rivers, streams, lakes, dams and water supply infrastructure, universities and research groups, food and beverage manufacturers, agriculture produce and aquaculture-based ventures, as well as corporations, companies or authorities that manage water theme parks, golf courses, lake gardens, fishing ponds and swimming pools.
“With a team of 12 personnel led by two chemists, this laboratory has won five consecutive Malaysian Institute of Chemistry excellence awards from 2017 to 2021.”
These awards acknowledge the corporation’s accomplishments in the field of water testing, namely raw water, settled water (the process of removing suspended particles) and treated water.
“The laboratory’s operations are accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025:2017, which is the standard for testing and calibration of laboratories. This encompasses advanced testing parameters for true colour, conductivity, alkalinity, dissolved oxygen content, biochemical oxygen demand, heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, total suspended solids and total organic carbon,” Jaseni said.
“The laboratory has been testing raw and treated water regularly in Penang according to a comprehensive set of parameters that are specified in the Health Ministry’s drinking water quality control programme.
“Test results last year showed that treated water produced by the corporation in Penang complied with the Health Ministry drinking water quality control programme. In this context, this laboratory confirmed that Penang’s treated water is among the cleanest, safest and healthiest in Malaysia.”
