No-Solvent For Oil-In-Water Analysis

Turner Designs Hydrocarbon Instruments has developed a revolutionary Bench-top method to measure oil-in-water that uses NO-SOLVENT!!! Significant advantages are the elimination of health and safety hazards of transporting, handling and disposing of solvents commonly used for oil-in-water analysis. Along with safety, the method eliminates operator error associated with precision liquid measurements during the analysis process. This new method works with our TD-500D (UV Fluorescence) hand held oil-in-water analyzer. It is a robust method using a simple surfactant instead of solvent, with unprecedented accuracy and repeatability.
In offshore oil production, the most common method for disposal is discharge to the sea. However, platforms must provide environmental protection by either continuous monitoring such as with our TD-4100 XD or grab sample analysis using an analyzer on the platform. Since the official laboratory methods cannot be managed offshore, portable or hand held field analyzers are calibrated to the standard method to provide similar results offshore.

Older field methods used IR for measurement and Freon as the extraction solvent. Freon was used because it is transparent to Infrared. However, with the ban of Freon, IR users have sought other extraction chemicals with the same efficiency as Freon. Today, typical extraction chemicals are either very toxic or very expensive or both with handling, transport, and disposal/recycle issues. When the TD-500D hand held oil in water analyzer was introduced 4 years ago, its appeal was that it could be used with any solvent. However, with its solvent extraction requirement, it suffered the same disposal and handling problems as IR. Further, both IR and the TD-500D required precision measurement of both the water sample volume and the solvent for repeatable results. To solve this problem, Turner Designs Hydrocarbon Instruments developed a new surfactant method to replace the extraction solvents. This new method called the “NO-SOLVENT METHOD” uses a proprietary material that completely solves the problem of solvent transportation, handling and disposal plus the method removes all precision measurement requirements. Anyone with a few minutes of training can easily obtain the same results as a fully trained chemist.

In a recent test, offshore on a drilling and production platform in the North Sea, the TD-500D with its No-Solvent Method was challenged against their bench-top Infrared (IR) Analyzer with side by side analysis. IR analyzers are calibrated against the standard Department of Climate Change (DECC) laboratory method (ISO 9377;2) for use offshore. The challenge for the TD-500D was to provide results equal the IR without the use of toxic chemicals. The results are shown below (see additional images)

The left chart shows the results of the TD-500D measured samples against the UK standard oil in water method prescribed by the DECC. The right chart shows the same data plotted against the IR analyzer on board the platform. The results show an almost perfect relationship between the TD-500D and the IR analyzer proving the value of the TD-500D for analysis of oil in water on that platform.
For more information, contact our Sales department at: sales@oilinwatermonitors.com