Environment management standard

Analytical Technology has been awarded the ISO 14001 environment management standard, recognising the company’s commitment to minimising its impact on the environment. As the supplier of water and gas monitoring instrumentation to the majority of Britains largest utility companies and leading food and beverage, metal finishing and pharmaceutical manufacturing companies across Europe, Analytical Technology is leading by example in matters relating to environmental protection. 

The ISO 14001 standard assists companies who want to minimise how their processes and operations negatively affect the environment and also provides guidance on how to comply with applicable laws and regulations. In order to obtain this certification, Analytical Technology is monitoring its consumption of fuel, gas, electricity and water in an attempt to reduce waste and energy usage and improve its overall environmental performance.

Analytical Technology manufactures both water and gas monitoring instrumentation to help companies demonstrate compliance with the strict regulations outlined by the Environment Agency (EA) and EU Directives. Industrial companies in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical and metal finishing sectors employ Analytical Technology’s instrumentation to monitor trade effluents to ensure that only safe levels of chemicals are released into the environment. The company’s wide range of water monitors includes dissolved hydrogen sulphide, pH, ammonia, dissolved oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, residual sulphite and several chlorine monitors.

Mike Strahand, General Manager Europe at Analytical Technology, commented: “We are committed to protecting the environment in whatever way possible and everyone in our team has an enhanced awareness of our company environmental policy. As we help companies on a daily basis to minimise their impact on the environment through the use of our water and gas monitors, we are delighted to have received recognition for our continual commitment to operating in an environmentally conscious manner.”

Reducing engine friction

An innovative torque sensor is helping to reduce engine emissions and improve economy as part of a project to develop an intelligent lubrication system.

With engine efficiency under the spotlight like never before, automotive companies are exploring all avenues for improving performance. And because engines have a rotating power output, torque is the key measurement.

Car engines are the bett noir of the environmental lobby. There is no doubt that they are major contributors to carbon build up. But equally they are fundamental to modern life. A true replacement is decades away, so we have to make them as efficient as possible.

Engine lubrication systems are essentially dumb. They have a simple mechanical pump which has been sized to ensure an adequate supply of oil in the worst operating condition.  This is typically a hot engine at idle. The pump is thus hugely oversized for most of the rest of the speed range and, as a consequence, nearly 60% of its output is dumped straight back into the sump via the relief valve. It will also deliver the same amount of oil to every part of the engine regardless of what that system might actually need. The pump is also insensitive to engine load and thus the bearings will receive the same oil supply at a given speed regardless of
the load. This is a very inefficient system.

In addition the pump forces nearly a ton of oil per hour through the filter, and when the oil is cold this takes a huge amount of energy.

With this in mind a major British company asked Powertrain Technologies Ltd in Norfolk, to design an intelligent lubrication system and to analyse its effects on engine friction and parasitic losses. They built a highly specialised test rig for the project and since accuracy in measuring small changes in drive torque reliably and repeatably was a critical requirement a key part of the rig is a TorqSense transducer from Sensor Technology in Banbury.

The engine being tested was a current production Diesel and the test bed was configured for motored friction tests with a 6,000rpm 32kW electric motor driving the engine.

Andrew Barnes, a director at Powertrain explains: “We completely re-designed the engine lubrication system and installed a bank of five computer controlled oil pumps (to our own design). Each is capable of supplying individual parts of the engine with oil under conditions unique to that part of the engine and sensitive to the engine operating conditions (for example we can supply the head with oil at pressures different to the block and supply the bearings with more oil when the engine is under high load).”

The idea is to completely profile the performance of the engine under various lubrication conditions and to derive optimum configurations of the intelligent systems for best performance.

“Both petrol and Diesel engines run far cleaner than they did 20 or 30 years ago,” says Andrew. “However the need to operate efficiently under a wide range speeds and loads and environmental conditions from -40 degrees C to + 40 degrees C remains the Achilles Heel. Intelligent lubrication has the potential to improve performance no end, although quantifying the best configuration is painstaking work.”

He goes on to explain that the torque sensor is critical to the project since the object of the exercise is to measure the effect on friction of a range of different oil supply strategies and oil types.  Thus the changes in friction are represented by a change in the motored drive torque of the engine.

TorqSense sensors are particularly appropriate for development work because they are wireless. “It’s a fit-and-forget, non-contact, digital sensor,” says Tony Ingham of Sensor Technology, “meaning you don’t have to fiddle around wiring up slip rings for each new measurement and together with digital outputs good accuracies can be obtained. The adjacent RF pickup emits radio waves towards the SAW’s as well as collecting the reflected resonant changes and it this change in frequency of the reflected waves that identifies the applied torqueed.”

TorqSense effectively senses and measures the radio frequency, RF, waves generated by two Surface Acoustic Wave devices or SAW’s fixed onto a rotating shaft and converts them to a torque measurement using two tiny SAW’s made of ceramic piezoelectric material with frequency resonating combs laid down on their surface. The SAW’s are fixed onto the drive shaft at 90degrees to one another.  As the torque increases the combs expand or contract proportionally to the torque being applied. In effect the combs act similarly to strain gauges but instead measure changes in resonant frequency.  The adjacent RF pickup emits radio waves towards the SAW’s as well as collecting the reflected resonant changes and its this change in frequency of the reflected waves that identifies the applied torque.

Powertrain's research has now progressed to the next stage in which the test rig is forsaken and the engine installed in a car to quantify the effect on fuel economy.

“It’s now a matter of driving it under all sorts of conditions on a mixture of test tracks and rolling roads to build up profiles of fuel consumption," says Andrew.

Water and waste event breaking records

WWEM Exhibition floor

The organisers of WWEM 2010 are expecting record levels of attendance at this year’s highly anticipated event; exhibitor numbers are 15% higher than at the last event in 2008 and the number of pre-registered visitors has grown by a massive 36%.

Taking place over two days (10^th and 11^th November) at the Telford International Centre (GB), there are a host of new features including a laboratory conference, a new gas detection zone and more new product launches than ever before.

There will be a strong international contingent at WWEM 2010, with registered visitors coming from as far afield as Romania, Russia, Turkey, Cyprus, Hungary, Portugal, Poland, the United States and even Australia.

WWEM 2010 will offer two Conferences, one focusing on Process Monitoring and another on Laboratory Analysis. There will also be over 70 free walk-in/walk-out Workshops to choose from in addition to an exhibition featuring over 120 of the world's leading providers of environmental monitoring equipment and services.

Metal analysers at show

Cogent to launch new online trace metals analysers

Cogent Environmental has chosen the WWEM 2010 event (10/11 November Telford GB) to launch a new advanced trace metals analyser that Managing Director Chris Welsh says "will offer enormous advantages over laboratory analysis."

The new OVA7000 can be configured to provide continuous monitoring data for a wide range of analytes (Total As, Au, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, Mn, Ni, Tl, U, Zn) in surface water, industrial wastewater and process water. With 20 years of experience in the development of online metal analysers, Chris says, "The Cogent engineers have designed the new OVA7000 to offer the advantages of continuous data to those that might traditionally have chosen laboratory analysis."

The Cogent stand at WWEM (No 64) will also feature the 'OVA7000As' which has been specifically designed for the measurement of Arsenic in drinking water.

Metals monitor improves influent understanding

Sometimes you see a name which you know many people outside of the area might find strange and you yourself smugly know where it is. This is a story of such a place - Fazakerley.The United Utilities wastewater treatment plant at Fazakerley (It's near Liverpool in North West England, said he smugly!) has installed a continuous metals analyser from Cogent Environmental to help investigate variable heavy metal content arising in the plant's catchment.

United Utilities staff are working with the British Environment Agency to gain a better understanding of the heavy metal sources in the catchment so that an appropriate solution can be identified. The monitor, an OVA5000, is providing continuous monitoring data at the plant's outfall for Copper, Nickel, Cadmium and Lead.

The continuous, real-time heavy metal monitoring instrument was first installed on a 3 month trial in April 2009. Since that time the OVA5000 has performed very well with no failures or significant downtime and was therefore purchased so that continuous monitoring could be extended.

The Fazakerley plant receives effluent from domestic sewage and industrial premises. The average flow is 54,000 m3/day with a maximum flow of 140,000 m3/day. This volume represents a high proportion of the flow in the receiving watercourse.

Alison Summersfield, Lead Operational Scientist for Wastewater, has been involved with the trial since its inception. Commenting on the value of real-time continuous data, she says, "We realised from the beginning that sampling for laboratory analysis would not be feasible because the concentration of heavy metals in the influent is extremely variable and consequently spot measurements are unlikely to provide meaningful data. In addition, results from laboratory analysis can incur long delays by which time the situation will have either changed or disappeared. The suggestion to employ an OVA5000 came as a result of successful trials on another site at which continuous chromium monitoring was conducted.
"Real-time data enables us to identify the frequency and timing of high concentrations and qualitative data may help us to identify the source of the metals content."

Data from the OVA5000 is currently collected by laptop, but will shortly be connected to the plant's monitoring and control system. In addition, an auto sampler will be triggered by the monitor so that samples can be taken immediately if effluent concentrations exceed pre-determined levels at any time of day or night. This will enable a more detailed laboratory analysis of high sample results to facilitate a closer identification of the pollutants' source.

The OVA5000 is able to measure using both Anode Stripping Voltammetry (ASV) and Cathode Stripping Voltammetry (CSV) techniques delivering limits of detection down to as low as 0.5ppb, depending upon the metal being measured and the sample matrix.

The maintenance requirements of the OVA5000 are minimal, requiring approximately 30 minutes per week by United Utilities staff (pump calibration verification, cleaning sample lines and analysis cells). A small quantity of reagents is consumed in the measurement process and these require top-up or replacement every 2 to 4 weeks. In addition a service contract has been put in place whereby Cogent Environmental staff make quarterly visits to carry out more extensive maintenance.

The OVA5000 is factory configured to meet application requirements and is able to measure up to six sampling streams.
Sample pre-treatment options include acid/ultraviolet light digestion for the removal of potential interferences.
Typical metal applications include: Arsenic (As), Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr), Copper (Cu), Lead (Pb), Iron (Fe) Mercury (Hg), Molybdenum (Mo), Nickel (Ni), Zinc (Zn) (Cogent Environmental continuously works to expand this list)

In addition to applications involving the monitoring of wastewater discharges, the OVA5000 is also employed in many countries including China, Korea and Taiwan to monitor river water for the identification of sources of heavy metal pollution and for intake protection for drinking water. It has also been deployed in process control applications.

Summarising her experience with the OVA5000, Alison Summersfield says, "The overall objective is to ensure that effluent metal concentrations remain within the consent for the site and this would be more difficult if we did not have access to continuous data. The OVA5000 has run constantly since April 2009 and since that time it has proved to be very reliable. Data from the monitor compares favourably with lab analysed samples. "As we establish a more detailed picture of the heavy metal patterns at the plant we look forward to being able to work with the Environment Agency to ensure that the environmental performance of the plant is optimised."