Handheld photoionisation instruments for investigation & remediation of hydrocarbon contamination!

An increase in demand for its oil spill consultancy and remediation services has prompted SpillAssist Limited to recently order a second handheld Tiger volatile organic compound (VOC) detector instrument from Ion Science British distributor, Shawcity. The high performance photoionisation (PID) instrument is being used for the investigation and remediation of petroleum hydrocarbon contamination.

SpillAssist specialises in the consultancy and remediation services associated with petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated sites such as residential properties, commercial facilities or rivers and lakes. After it has identified the extent of the damage, the company will design, implement and manage the remedial works programme and conduct the final validation surveys to confirm that the site has been fully restored.

Trevor Duffy, Operations Director at SpillAssist comments: “We needed to boost our stock of PID instruments due to an increase in project numbers. We originally approached Ion Science as we had seen how well the Tiger performed for another company.

“We record hydrocarbon VOCs as they enable us to plot the extent of the contamination. The readings from the Ion Science Tiger VOC detectors allow us to determine which samples are independently analysed and also enable us to monitor the hydrocarbon degradation rates whilst we are remediating a contaminated site.”

SpillAssist is using the Tiger instruments to record kerosene, diesel and petrol VOCs from soil and from the indoor air of contaminated properties. Readings are taken on a daily basis due to the number of sites the company is currently investigating, monitoring and remediating. The information is collected from each sample point and then recorded onto a VOC record data sheet.

The robust, handheld Ion Science Tiger VOC detector offers market-leading humidity and contamination resistant PID technology. It was the best performing when tested against competing instruments in humid and contaminated environments where it provided the most stable, repeatable readings.

Trevor adds: “We had no hesitation in purchasing additional Tiger PIDs. We find this particular instrument to be sensitive, robust, reliable, accurate and easy to operate and maintain. As a result, we would highly recommend Ion Science, which also services and calibrates the units, and its products to other businesses.”

Providing a dynamic detection range of 1 parts per billion (ppb) to 20,000 parts per million (ppm), the Tiger offers the widest measurement range of any other VOC instrument on the market.
Ready to use, straight out of the box, the instrument requires no complex set up procedures via a PC to perform basic functions and provides the best available VOC detection and software features available.

Ion Science’s Tiger also has the fastest response time on the market of just two seconds and can be connected directly to a PC via the USB offering extremely fast data download capabilities.
It has been designed for the safe replacement of batteries in hazardous environments and is intrinsically safe (IS) - meeting ATEX, IECEx, UL and CSA standards.