Monitoring hazardous agents.

In line with China’s new occupational exposure limits for Chemical Hazardous Agents in the Workplace which took effect on 1 April 2020, Purolite Corporation China is using a Mercury Vapour Indicator (MVI) from Ion Science to help ensure the health and safety of its employees. The handheld instrument is measuring mercury vapour levels in an area used for mercury intrusion porosimetry to calculate the porosity of speciality ion exchange resin.

Purolite is a leading manufacturer of quality ion exchange, catalyst, adsorbent and speciality high-performance resins for complex regulatory environments including biotechnology, pharmaceutical, food, fine chemical and electric power generation. The company focuses 100% of its resources on the development and production of resin technology.

Xihua Yu, Purolite’s Lab Instruction Engineer comments: “As part of our quality control process, we conduct mercury intrusion porosimetry to measure the porosity of our resin. This is because the porosity of a material not only affects its physical behaviour but also its durability and decay rate.

“In line with the requirements of the newly updated ‘occupational exposure limit of hazardous agents in the workplace’ GBZ 2.1-2109 regulations, it is important we monitor the mercury vapour concentration in the area where the porosimeter instrument is located to ensure the health and safety of our staff.”

In accordance with the Chinese regulations, short term exposure limit of hazardous agents in the workplace is mercury vapour: 0.040mg/m3.

“We chose the Ion Science MVI over competitor instruments due to its simple, lightweight design and ability to detect mercury within three seconds, as well as the after sales service and technical support,” Xihua Yu adds.

Mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) is a technique used for the evaluation of porosity, pore size distribution, and pore volume (among others) to characterise a wide variety of solid and powder materials. The porosimeter employs a pressurised chamber to force mercury to intrude into the voids in a porous substrate. As pressure is applied, mercury fills the larger pores first. As pressure increases, the filling proceeds to smaller and smaller pores.

Ion Science’s MVI is a revolutionary handheld instrument that can detect mercury in just three seconds. Ergonomically designed for simple, one-handed operation, it is the ideal survey unit for rapid and reliable mercury detection. It helps to pinpoint mercury sources in even the most challenging environments.

The MVI’s dual beam UV technology eliminates the problem of saturation and the need for regeneration between readings, maximising its availability and uptime. A high-performance pump ensures fast indication and recovery and the instrument’s audible alarm and large digital display clearly indicate the levels of mercury present.

Fast and accurate, the MVI provides continuous readings and offers two detection ranges of 0 – 200 µg/m3 (res. 0.1 µg/m3) and 0 – 2000 µg/m3 (res. 1 µg/m3). These two ranges provide critical coverage for the OSHA PEL at 100 ug / m³ and the IDLH at 1000 ug / m³.

Xihua Yu concludes: “The Ion Science MVI operates very well and provides fast, accurate results. Based on our experience so far, I would be pleased to recommend it to other manufacturing businesses.”

@ionscience #PAuto #Safety #China