FTIR gas analyzer creates complete picture of contamination &/or emissions

FTIR gas analysis technology is being used by occupational health specialists from Wisconsin, USA, to identify and quantify both known and unknown gas species in a wide variety of applications in which workers are potentially at risk.

The FTIR instrument, a Gasmet DX4040, is owned by North Shore Environmental Construction (NSEC), a specialist in the management of hazardous materials response and environmental challenges. NSEC routinely employs specialist consultants for the more technically complex investigations and Michael McCoy, M.S., CIH, CHMM, CSP from GZA GeoEnvironmental provides a high level of expertise in these applications, which includes evaluation of the data.

As a portable FTIR gas analyser, the DX4040 effectively enables laboratory grade analysis onsite which dramatically increases the speed with which contamination can be assessed, and avoids the problems, costs and delays associated with transporting samples to a laboratory.

Michael McCoy says: “A major advantage of Gasmet’s FTIR analyzers is their ability to identify unknown compounds. Calcmet software facilitates the identification of unknown peaks in a spectrum by comparison with Gasmet’s vast library of stored spectra.”

The DX4040 has already been employed in a wide variety of applications. For example, it was deployed in a health and safety investigation to measure fumes and breakdown products following a nitric acid leak, and it has also been used to characterise the emissions profile of different processes within a specialist paint factory; analysing a variety of VOCs in the evaporative emissions. In a similar application, the DX4040 was used to characterise the emission from a ceramics manufacturer. In line with the USEPA’s approach to pollution monitoring, such investigations help manufacturers to identify the fate of different chemical species.

Summarizing, Michael says: “Portable FTIR, in the right hands, is a very powerful tool, helping to define the composition of the gaseous contamination, which reduces risk and builds assurance in remediation activities. Looking forward, I believe that this technology will be employed in an increasingly larger number of even more diverse applications.”

The full story is available at: www.gasmet.com/company/news