Synspec Water Purge unit
The Synspec Water Purge Unit is built for the separated and individual measurement of volatile organic hydrocarbons in water in combination with the full range of Synspec gas chromatographs. The Water purge unit is designed to strip VOC with air or nitrogen from water for a continuous qualitative and quantitative determination of up to 40 hydrocarbons.
Toxic hydrocarbons in water:
The three main applications are: monitoring industrial waste water, quality monitoring of drinking, surface and groundwater by water companies or governments and analyzing water when cleaning contaminated soil:
1: Control of raw and of cleaned industrial waste water before transferring it further to be certain that the water is not contaminated. In this way pollution of rivers etc. can be prevented.
2: Measurement of water quality in surface and ground water to ascertain its quality for many purposes.
3: Determing the quality of the groundwater layers: this either near contaminated soil sites or during the clean-up process of the soil, where water is often used to remove hydrocarbon contamination.
In the above mention cases the monitor water samples can be analysed in a laboratory. This process is however time consuming and expensive. With online measurements you can react immediately if alarm values are exceeded.
Aromates in water at refineries:
In refineries the main pollution of water layers is by the aromatic fraction of the oil. Raw oil can contain up to 40% aromatic hydrocarbons. The aromates are partially removed before the fuel fractions like diesel, kerosene, benzene are produced. The benzene concentration is legally restricted in many products. The amount of toluene and xylenes is also defined within a narrow margin. The aromatic molecules can however be used as building blocks in many chemical processes. During these refining processes water is used. The water layer must be purified before it can be released to surface water,
The Synspec Water Purge Unit (WPU) combined with a gas chromatograph can certify that the purity level is ok.
Configuration of the Water Purge Unit:
An external pump (either supplied by the user or Multi Instruments) pumps water from the source. A second bypass pump ascertains a water sample without particles that passes to the purge unit. The sample is heated to a stable temperature. Bu purging clean air trough this sample only the hydrocarbons are stripped from the water layer. Fine particles, salts, soaps and high boiling oils remain in the water layer. The purge air flow is regulated up to 300 ml/min from a water flow with a capacity from 3 to 30 l/h. The system has a foam destroyer to avoid foam entering the GC. The WPU is controlled by the computer in the GC.
Recommended analysers: Synspec GC 955 series or Synspec Alpha and Delta line, internal computer GC controls WPU.