Waste water management in accordance with ISO 14001 using the Shimadzu On-Line Total Organic Carbon Analyzer

Introduction

In recent years, to avoid environmental risks and to promote continuous improvement to the environment, an increasing number of enterprises have been acquiring ISO 14001 accreditation. One of the activities for acquiring ISO14001 accreditation is the reinforcement of the controls on waste water for the reduction of harmful effect on the environment. With respect to waste water from working facilities, each enterprise carries out measurements of regulated items in order to comply with the waste water standards. For example, organic pollution is the most general type of pollution produced not only by manufacturing process but also by normal day-to-day life. If large amounts of organic substances are discharged into public water systems such as rivers, lakes, reservoirs and seas, this can cause social problems such as water bloom, red tide and lack of oxygen, as well as unpleasant effect on the taste and smell of drinking water. This organic pollution can be easily measured by the TOC analyzer. Normally COD or BOD measurements are made, but these are time consuming manual analyses, and difficult to perform as continuous monitoring. There is an example of using the Shimadzu On-Line TOC Analyzer for continuous monitoring of harmful organic pollution concentration in waste water to enforce environmental protection under the accreditation.

June 29, 2001 GMT