Oil and grease is one of the five conventional pollutants covered by the 1974 Clean Water Act.

The measurement of oil and grease is included in all of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination Systems (NPDES) permits, all pre-treatment permits, and all Industrial Effluent Guidelines.  As a result of the Montreal Protocol, which entered into force in 1989, the EPA was required to move from a Freon extraction infrared-based determination method to a n-Hexane extraction mass-based determination method.  However, this created four new issues: 

  1. frequent exposure to n-Hexane is required, which is a highly volatile solvent and a known neurotoxin that places analysts at elevated health risks,
  2. n-Hexane is highly flammable, requiring proper engineering controls and procedures for use and storage,
  3. large amounts of n-Hexane hazardous waste are produced, and
  4. the analytical time is significantly increased.

The ClearShot™ Extraction Technology® and associated method “ASTM D7575 – Standard Method for Solvent-Free Membrane Recoverable Oil and Grease by Infrared Determination” eliminates the four issues listed above by removing the use of n-Hexane or any other solvent from the analysis or cleanup. Easy adoption of this method has been demonstrated in both field and laboratory settings.

SPECIFICATIONS

(Wastewater, Produced Water)

  • Detection Limit: <5ppm
  • Lower Quantification Limit: <5 ppm
  • Linear Reporting Range: 5 – 200 ppm
  • Average Analysis Time Per Sample:  15 minutes
  • Parallel Processing:  A Single Operator can perform up to 20 measurements in one hour

PRODUCTS