Some waste waters, especially those coming from microelectronics and galvanisers contain significant concentrations of tin and lead. Their determination is possible by spectroscopic tools. However, for unattended monitoring of waste water quality, these laboratory techniques are not suitable.  ISTRAN has developed an on-line system enabling unattended, low-cost and fast surveillance of Sn and Pb species in various waste water streams, e.g. microprocessor processing, galvanisers, metallurgical plants. The measured data has been checked by AAS and ICP spectroscopy and a satisfactory match has been found. The simultaneous measurement for both Sn and Pb is completed within 10 minutes. The reagent solutions used in the system contain diluted salts, an acid and hydroxide, eliminating any additional pollution of effluents coming from the plant. The system can be controlled by a central computer, or it can operate alone-standing with own measurement pace. The system enables automatic calibration, data logging, analog and digital data transfer. Alarm signals (threshold value, status, measurement failure, system error, reagent depletion) are also available and the system can address several sampling points sequentially. Such analysers are operating in microelectronic production in Germany over 5 years.

Two Sn - Pb analysers operating on-line