Measurement of Purgeable Organic Carbon (POC) by TOC-L

Introduction

Total organic carbon (TOC) may be classified as either purgeable organic carbon (POC) or non-purgeable organic carbon (NPOC) depending on whether the substance is easily purged from the sample into the air. Some compounds containing purgeable organic carbon may cause health problems if they exist in the environment, and if they are used in solvents or fuels, they may cause environmental problems by contaminating rivers or other surface water. Surface water is used as a water source for tap water, so the safety of surface water is a major concern from the perspective of quality control of drinking water. It is important to control the concentrations of purgeable organic substances contained in such water. Using the purgeable organic carbon (POC) measurement kit option for the Shimadzu TOC-L total organic carbon analyzer, POC levels can be measured by sparging samples at room temperature. This document introduces an example of a POC measurement of an aqueous solution of purgeable organic compounds using the TOC-L_CPH and POC measurement kit system.

March 30, 2016 GMT