Chromatography Used to Test Power Plant Equipment

With the decline of the natural gas reserves in the North Sea over the last decade, the United Kingdom has had to look towards alternative sources for the supply of electricity to the nation. At the heart of an industrial society is the thermal power plant that supplies the electricity that we the consumer takes for granted both in the business world and at home. No matter whether the plant is nuclear of fossil fuel driven, its safe and reliable operation is critical and must be guaranteed.

Ion chromatography (IC) can be used to ensure that no hazardous substances enter the sensitive circuit of the power plant and can be used to determine the ionic constituents of aqueous media accurately and rapidly all the way down to nanogram per litre level.

IC systems from Metrohm are custom made for the application of use and the cations determined typically include alkali metals besides ammonium and organic amines.

A typical instrument configuration would be the Metrohm MIC 4 Advanced Modular IC System with 838 Advanced Sample Processor (revised for trace analysis).

A huge advantage of the Metrohm IC instruments is the use of Metrohm Inline Sample Preparation (MISP) whereby the liquid handling is performed by flexible sample changers and the highly accurate Dosino technology reduces user interaction and allows facilitation by even semi skilled personnel.