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AN ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY VERIFICATION (ETV) TESTING OF TWO NUTRIENT ANALYZERS AT AN INDUSTRIAL PLANT: SCHIMADZU SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS, INC. TNPC-4110(C) AND A ZAPS TECHNOLOGIES, INC. MULTI-PARAMETER (MP-1)
Citation:
BATTELLE MEMORIAL INSTITUTE, A. L. SUMNER, A. DINDAL, Z. WILLENBERG, K. RIGGS, W. L. SMITH, AND K. N. WOOD. AN ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY VERIFICATION (ETV) TESTING OF TWO NUTRIENT ANALYZERS AT AN INDUSTRIAL PLANT: SCHIMADZU SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS, INC. TNPC-4110(C) AND A ZAPS TECHNOLOGIES, INC. MULTI-PARAMETER (MP-1). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-05/125 (NTIS PB2006-101289), 2005.
Impact/Purpose:
The overall objective of the ETV Program is to accelerate the entrance of new environmental technologies into the domestic and international marketplace by identifying the environmental performance characteristics of commercial-ready technology through the evaluation of objective and quality assured data. This provides the potential purchasers and permitters with an independent and credible assessment of what they are buying and/or permitting. The AMS Center has received funding to performance verify monitoring technologies relevant for homeland security.
Description:
The Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program, beginning as an initiative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1995, verifies the performance of commercially available, innovative technologies that can be used to measure environmental quality. The ETV provides, through a third-party, quality-assured performance data so buyers and users of environmental technologies can make informed purchase and application decisions, thus providing one path to reducing emissions there by improving the quality of the environment and reducing health risk to humans. To provide cost-effective testing, Stakeholder committees, made up of members with diverse backgrounds, provide guidance with identifying and prioritizing environmental technologies to address present day environmental quality challenges.
The ETV Advanced Monitoring Systems (AMS) Center, one of six ETV Centers, is actively involved in verifying the performance of advanced monitoring systems available to the public for purchase. The AMS Center participates in the mission of the ETV by providing Test Plans, Protocols, conducting independent performance tests of technologies, and preparing Verification Reports and Statements describing the results of the testing. Vendors of tested technologies can use the Verification Reports and Statements for marketing purposes. All approved Verification Reports are posted on the ETV Web Site as a form of public distribution. The individual verification reports and statements describe by this abstract are the Schimadzu Scientific Instruments, Inc. TNPC-4110(C) and the ZAPS Technologies, Inc. Multi-Parameter (MP-1) Nutrient Analyzers.
The objective of this verification test was to evaluate the analyzers' performance in quantifying nutrient concentrations in wastewater at an industrial wastewater treatment plant. The verification test was conducted between May 5 and June 16, 2005, at the DuPont Company's industrial wastewater treatment facility at the Spruance Plant in Richmond, Virginia. At the Spruance Plant, DuPont manufactures engineering polymers/plastics and fibers (e.g., NOMEX flame retardant and KEVLAR). Operations Management International (OMI), Inc., operates the wastewater treatment plant under contract with DuPont. The wastewater from the Spruance Plant provided a single example of possible matrix effects associated with wastewater monitoring. The verification test was designed to evaluate accuracy, bias, linearity, limit of detection (LOD), reproducibility, span and zero drift, interference effects, matrix effects, data completeness, and operational factors.
The test had two components: off-line testing (two phases) and on-line effluent monitoring. During off-line Phase I testing, the analyzers were challenged with multi-level nutrient standards and deionized (DI) water to determine their accuracy, bias, linearity, and LOD. The analyzers were challenged with additional nutrient standards for the determination of interference effects for several forms of nitrogen and phosphorous. Reproducibility was evaluated during off-line Phase I testing by repeatedly challenging the analyzers with a mixed standard containing potassium nitrate and potassium dihydrogenphosphate. To determine span and zero drift, once each week, DI water and the mixed nutrient standard were supplied to the analyzers for a total of five zero/span checks. During off-line Phase I and Phase II testing, the analyzers were challenged with a series of samples containing altered DI water or wastewater matrices to determine matrix effects. During on-line effluent monitoring, analyzer matrix effects were evaluated for the final effluent. Data completeness was assessed based on the overall data return, and operational factors were evaluated based on the observations of Battelle and OMI staff.
QA oversight of the verification testing was provided by the EPA and Battelle. Battelle QA staff conducted a technical systems audit and a data quality audit of 10% of the test data. The verification statement, the full report on which it is based, and the test/QA plan for this verification are all available at http://www.epa.gov/etv/centers/center1.html.