Winter 2009

A Quarterly Newsletter of the Instrumentation Testing Association

ITA Enews

Spring 2011

        TA jump started its online total organic carbon (TOC) analyzer test project with a test site meeting held the end of January 2011 at the Gulf Coast Waste Disposal Authority (GCWDA), Bayport Industrial Wastewater Treatment plant in Pasadena, Texas.  

Prior to the test meeting, ITA held a meeting with manufacturers to review, comment and approve the TOC Test Protocol and Procedures.  A copy of the published procedures were provided to manufacturers and plant staff at the test site meeting.

During the meeting, ITA staff presented information regarding the ITA testing process and Gulf Coast staff presented information regarding their treatment process.  Online TOC manufacturers presented their specific instrument installation, operation, maintenance and calibration information to Gulf Coast staff and ITA meeting attendees. 

Following presentations, online TOC analyzer manufacturers toured the Bayport facility and met Gulf Coast staff including:

· Leonard Levine, Technical Director;

· Jack Wahlstrom, Facility Manager;

· Joanne MacDougall, Project Engineer and ITA TOC Test Coordinator;

· Jeff Nuss, Operations Supervisor;

· BW Fritch, Maintenance Manager; and

· Scott Harris, Compliance Coordinator. 

Also in attendance was ITA member John Barber of Eastman Chemical from Kingsport, Tennessee.

Instrumentation Testing Association  (ITA)

 

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ITA Begins TOC Analyzer Test at

Gulf Coast’s Bayport Industrial Plant

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BAYPORT TREATMENT PROCESS

GCWDA Bayport Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant has a treatment capacity of 30 million gallons per day (MGD) serving approximately 65 customers (largely petrochemical) who tie into one of 9 stations along a 2.5 mile long Biosan influent pipeline.  The pipeline gravity flows into the main lift station where it is pumped to the treatment system.  Each customer stream has a flow meter and a 24-hour composite sampler.  Each of the 9 stations has pH and pressure transmitters.

Gulf Coast staff  noted that the existing wastewater treatment process at the Bayport Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) consists of a two stage activated sludge treatment system.  The first step uses pure oxygen in a jet aeration system while the second step is also a jet aeration system however it uses air.  The aeration basins are followed by clarification and final polishing that produces an effluent with 29 mg/L TSS and 11 mg/L C-BOD.

The solids treatment process at GCWDA is comprised of thickening and dewatering processes for waste activated sludge (WAS), and inert solids removed from high solids influent streams. These facilities include gravity thickeners, sludge blending and gravity filter presses.

The following table lists the average treatment process characteristics for the GCWDA, Bayport WWTP, influent Biosan pipeline.

Test instrument manufacturers will be installing online TOC test instruments during the months of February and March 2011.  The TOC analyzers will be tested in the range of 0 to 3000 mg/L.  

During the test project, Gulf Coast will be using online instrument data for monitoring purposes only however, GCWDA is very interested in TOC precision, accuracy and control to automate their treatment processes.

Instrument data will be collected by the plant’s SCADA system and conformance testing for TOC will be performed by GCWDA’s  laboratory once per weekday (one sample for all test instruments) in triplicate and the average of all three tests will be used for comparison to the online test instruments.  The conformance measurement grab sample will be taken from the existing sample port and pump configuration on the Biosan influent pipeline.

TOC conformance measurements will be made according to Standard Methods or EPA Methods.  All manual analyses performed shall be done at least in triplicate.  Prior to the start of the formal test period, the test coordinator will evaluate the accuracy and precision of the conformance measurements, based on the following references:

Total Organic Carbon (TOC) —Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, 20th Edition, 1998, Reference 5310B (high temperature combustion method).

Accuracy and Precision— Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, 20th Edition, 1998, Reference 1010 through 1100.

The ITA test project will include testing of five online total organic carbon (TOC) analyzers will be using four of the five different online TOC analyzer technologies:

· High Temperature Combustion (HTC),

· High Temperature Catalytic/Combustion Oxidation (HTCO),

· Supercritical Water Oxidation (SCWO),

· Patented Two-Stage Advanced Oxidation (TSAO) Process using Hydroxyl Radicals, and

· Heated Persulfate Ultraviolet (UV) Oxidation.

DETERMINING ACCURACY AND PRECISION OF CONFORMANCE MEASUREMENTS and “OUT-OF-CONFORMANCE” REFERENCE VALUES

As test instruments are being installed during the months of February and March 2011, Gulf Coast staff will be preparing to evaluate the accuracy and precision of the conformance measurement methods by performing statistical analysis of multiple measurements of the TOC concentration levels in the test influent Biosan pipeline. Accuracy and precision data for the conformance measurements will be developed at the Gulf Coast Waste Disposal Authority, Bayport Wastewater Treatment Plant test site, and prior to the test start date.  Separate control data sets will be maintained for analytical accuracy based on analysis of the observation of the differences between the conformance measurements and the test instruments.

Tracking the mean difference between the test instruments and conformance measurements will develop a set of control data. These data sets will be used to establish the upper and lower control limits for the “out-of-conformance” reference values. A series of 21 grab samples will be taken prior to the testing period and then the mean and standard deviation will be calculated from the laboratory conformance measurements. The upper and lower control limits will be established by the value of +/- 1 to 3 standard deviations for this control data and will determine the “out of conformance” reference values along with other standard control charting compliance procedures.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ITA is grateful to its membership for making the online TOC test project possible through the annual membership dues.  ITA is also grateful to Gulf Coast for donating staff time and resources to the ITA TOC test project as the test facility and is grateful to the five manufacturers (Hach/Biotector, GE, Shimadzu, Liquid Analytical Resource (LARs) and Endress+Hauser) who have committed to participate in the test project by donating equipment and funding. 

Please contact ITA to find out more about the benefits of providing funding contributions to the TOC research project and to learn how your treatment plant can become involved.

ITA’s Published TOC Test Protocol and Procedures Were Provided to Test Site Meeting Attendees

One of the Plant’s Covered Aeration Basins

TOC TEST INSTRUMENT INSTALLATIONS

Gulf Coast staff identified where at the influent to the facility that the  online TOC test instruments would be installed.  All test instruments will be housed in a trailer near the Biosan influent pipeline and test instruments will use a sample line from the existing plant Biosan influent pipeline sample port and pump (pictured below and below right).