State-of-the-art on-line meters for determination of ammonium, nitrate and phosphate are presented. The on-line meters employ different measuring principles and are available in many different designs differing with respect to size, calibration and cleaning principle, user-friendliness, response time, reagent and sample consumption. A study of Danish experiences on several plants has been conducted. The list price of an on-line meter is between USD 8000 and USD 35,000. To this should be added the cost of sample preparation, design, installation and running-in. The yearly operating for one meter are in the range of USD 200-2500 and the manpower consumption is in the range of 1-5 hours/month. The accuracy obtained is only slightly smaller than the accuracy on collaborative laboratory analyses, which is sufficient for most control purposes.
