Monitoring industrial wastewater by online GC-MS with direct aqueous injection.
An online GC-MS-system for automated monitoring of crude wastewater at a complex chemical production site is presented. The modular system is, in principal, based on commercial equipment, but utilizes a special, two-stage injector, which consists of a splitless vaporization chamber on top of a PTV injector filled with Tenax. This set-up enables direct injection of wastewater. Almost 140 volatile and semi-volatile compounds are calibrated down to 1 mg L(-1), which is sufficient for analysis of the influent of the wastewater-treatment plant. Two instruments analyze alternately, every 20 min, and the instrument cycle time is 40 min. The quantitative results are transferred to a database which is connected to a process-control system. Depending on the nature and concentration of a compound, an alarm can be generated and the wastewater stream can be diverted into an "off spec tank" if necessary. The GC-MS-system operates quasi-continuously with a system availability >98%. Data quality is automatically controlled in each run and by daily analysis of a quality-control sample. The development of a novel stacked PTV-PTV injector design to expand the range of analytes to selected basic compounds is described.
Wortberg
M
M
BASF Aktiengesellschaft, Environmental Analytics, 67056 Ludwigshafen, Germany. monika.wortberg@basf-ag.de
Ziemer
W
W
Kugel
M
M
Müller
H
H
Neu
H-J
HJ
D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D007220:Industrial Waste / Q000032:analysis*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry; D014877:Water Pollution, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
D007220:Industrial Waste; D014867:Water