The On-line VOC Analysis of Industrial Effluents using Ambient Headspace

In a world of ever lowering detection limits and stringent relative standard deviations (RSDs) it is often easy to forget that for some analyses these are not necessary. In the case of monitoring industrial effluents for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) only the ability to observe a sudden upward trend in levels is crucial to the analysis; relatively high RSDs and detection limits of around 0.5 ppm are acceptable. In this environment, a simple, fully automated, on-line analysis is advantageous, where the instrument is set-up to take, prepare and analyse a sample once an hour, requiring no interaction from the technician, who checks the data system regularly for any changes in results and makes any decisions accordingly.