Usalco has acquired SENTRY Water Monitoring, a provider of real-time bio-electrode monitoring technology for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment. The acquisition brings SENTRY’s technology, customer base and team into Usalco’s Digital Solutions Division and its Decision Blue platform.
The acquisition expands Decision Blue’s monitoring, process modelling and treatment analytics capabilities through the integration of SENTRY’s bio-electrode monitoring technology.
SENTRY’s technology provides continuous monitoring of biological activity within wastewater treatment processes. It generates biological signals that can be used to measure water quality parameters, including biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), biodegradable chemical oxygen demand (BCOD) and volatile fatty acids (VFA), while detecting changes in microbial activity as they occur.
Usalco said the integration of SENTRY’s technology into Decision Blue will provide wastewater treatment operators with earlier visibility of changes in treatment conditions. The system is designed to identify issues such as unexpected organic loads, toxic events or biological imbalances more quickly than traditional measurement methods. The technology can also integrate with supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and other plant monitoring infrastructure.
Megan Glover, chief digital officer at Usalco, said: “Bio-electrode monitoring is incredibly valuable to an operator’s workflow. When we combine that real-time biological signal with chemistry data, machine learning, and AI, Decision Blue can help operators understand not only what is happening in their treatment process, but what to do about it.”
The integration effort will be led by Chris Miller, vice president of digital innovation, who has overseen the development of the Decision Blue platform since its origins as Fontus Blue, a company he founded.
Usalco said the acquisition was also driven by SENTRY’s focus on data reliability, which it views as important for the continued development of artificial intelligence applications in wastewater monitoring and recommendation systems.
Under the transaction, Patrick Kiely, founder of SENTRY, and members of the SENTRY team will join Decision Blue. Kiely will take on the role of vice president of technology and strategic growth at Usalco.
Kiely said: “SENTRY was built on the commitment to provide reliable, robust wastewater monitoring. By combining our monitoring technology with Usalco’s operational and chemical expertise, we can turn real-time data into practical solutions that deliver value to operators quickly.”
He added: “This technology gives operators a signal that tells them when biological conditions are changing long before a traditional measurement can, and joining Decision Blue means we can take that signal much further.”
According to Usalco, the acquisition forms part of the ongoing development of the Decision Blue platform, which combines treatment chemistry, operational data and software tools to support wastewater treatment decision-making.
Ken Gayer, chief executive officer of Usalco, said: “This acquisition brings critical hardware and biological data into our platform, and it brings talented people who share our commitment to helping operators do their jobs with more confidence.”
