George Schopp (EPA) and Jeff Perl (Chicago Chem Consultants)
One of many fancy pieces of equipment that the EPA uses to measure impurities in water. This one measures carbon and sulfur content.
Dennis Wesolowski (EPA Chicago Lab director) and Jeff Perl (CCC, AIChE Fellow)
Always making good use of space, this area that used to house samples now houses equiment.
S2 RANGER – Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) with XFlash® Technology
Paperwork, paperwork.... to be sent to storage, but they know as soon as they sent it off, some lawyer will need some piece of paper
The EPA is a great customer of various gases
Safety first!
More fancy equipment to measure more components in samples. They are very up to date, and are capable of measure very small amounts.
Look at that organization! Impressive!
Ion exchanger to produce deionizer water; they need a lot of that in this analytical lab
As with most of their equipment, EPA staff can load up the equipment with many samples at once, start the machine, and do other work while the machine analyses and produces electronic, ready-to-use results.
They are also a fun group. Is this the mascot of the pippetters union?
The automation of analysis has also allowed the EPA to use far fewer solvents and reactacts, as the machines draw the minimum amount required. This saves money two ways: the EPA can purchase less chemicals and then produces less waste, which costs money for proper disposal.
Safety, safety
We were impressed with the depth and scope of the EPA lab cutting-edge lab technology as well as the knowledge and engagment of the staff in their work.
These are special containers used to collect air samples or analysis. These “bombs” are attached to an auto-sampling tree, to allow the equipment to perform many analyses unsupervised.
There are so many types of autosamplers because each equipment is designed for a specific purpose. The autosamplers allow many samples to be analyzed with a skeleton staff. As included in a different caption, these cutting-edge samplers use a fraction of the chemicals required by methods that they replaced.
This is one of the other methods which has not yet been replaced by an advanced auto-analyzer. It uses more chemicals, but makes a great picture! For the engineers: a water sample is put in the cylindrical part of the apparatus that is sitting on the bench. There is a methylene chloride solvent in the tear-drop shaped glass, which is being vaporized in the heat exchanger below it (the attached tubes provide hot water to the exchanger). Above the tear-drop glass is a piece of equipment that provides several stages of separation, and at the top of the equipment is a condenser (the tubes on the top carry cold water). This is batch distillation that transfers impurities from the water sample to the methylene chloride. At the end of the distillation, the methylene chloride will be collected to then characterize the impurities that had been in the water. Just because this process is not automated, it does not mean it is cheap! The glassware is custom, and sometimes breaks.
The secret it out: the auto-sampler is a vampire. Just look at the marks on these used vials.
The EPA staff are extremely knowledgeable and willing to explain their work with enthusiam. This is an ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma) analyzer, which detects very small amounts of metals such as arsenic.
This coil produces a Tesla spark that rips electrons off argon (the noble gas) creating a reactive atom that will rip electrons from the metal to be analyzed.
