Eco-Efficient Oil-in-Water Testing

eralytics (Austria) is proud to release a new instrument for the measurement of oil-in-water. Ecology meets economy in ERACHECK ECO by combining an advanced optical filter-based measurement technique with the ecologically safe extraction solvent cyclohexane. The use of a cost-efficient measurement technology in combination with the low-cost solvent cyclohexane gives you the most economical oil-in-water tester available today.

Adding ERACHECK ECO to eralytics’ product line is a huge step towards a cleaner environment. But let’s take a look at the big picture and start from the beginning: In 1989 the Montreal protocol decided to forbid all CFC solvents by 2020 at the latest due to their harmful effects on the ozone layer. These types of solvents were used to measure one ecologically important parameter called oil-in-water – a closely monitored value to decide if waste water or discharge water shall be allowed to be disposed as is or if it needs to be further purified to be safe for the environment.

After 1989 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) switched from the previous IR method ASTM D3921, which used a CFC solvent, to a gravimetrical method called EPA 1664B. In Europe people shifted to gas chromatography using method ISO 9377-2. Both techniques suffer from several drawbacks in comparison with the IR methods. They are less repeatable and more time consuming.

There was and still is a need for an easy-to-operate measurement technique which offers all the advantages of the IR methods but without the need for a CFC solvent such as Freon 113. ERACHECK PRO was the first oil-in-water tester released by eralytics in 2008 to offer that. It uses a high-end quantum cascade laser light source which allows measuring extracted oil in the ecologically friendly solvent cyclohexane with highest precision in the low sub-ppm range. Quantum cascade lasers are highly efficient, but on the downside, they are also a pretty costly technology. So eralytics engineers looked into finding a measurement technique that was considerably more cost-efficient, without compromising on the benefits of ERACHECK PRO.

In hindsight we can say that this was no easy task at all. But we succeeded in building an instrument based on optical high-tech filters which can measure oil-in-water down to a concentration of 0.5 mg/l. We call it ERACHECK ECO. It still uses the eco-friendly solvent cyclohexane and is the most economical highly precise analyser available on the market today.

Naturally, we continue to offer ERACHECK PRO, because it reaches an even lower limit of detection and it tops the ERACHECK ECO regarding instrument repeatability. Therefore, the PRO model remains the instrument of choice for specialised high-end applications, whereas ERACHECK ECO is designed to be the new sturdy workhorse for oil-in-water testing.

Upgrade your oil-in-water testing to the next level in terms of precision, ease of use, measurement speed and environmental friendliness with ERACHECK ECO.