Industrial Effluents Assessment

Southern Research has developed an innovative risk-based approach for use in remediating an industrial effluent for internal reuse or discharge to receiving systems (i.e., rivers, lakes, or reservoirs). Our approach includes the following elements:

• Determination of chemical and physical constituents in effluents. This initial procedure allows us to obtain data for comparisons of constituents in a site effluent to actual or anticipated discharge limits.
• New state-of-the art equipment is used, such as an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS, Agilent 7700) with octopole reaction system (ORS) for determination of inorganics (e.g., mercury, selenium, arsenic, boron, cadmium, copper, chromium, cobalt, iron, lead, manganese, nickel, and zinc). Accurate and precise measurements of inorganics can be conducted for waters with high matrix interferences, such as saline waters or those that contain elevated concentrations of organics (e.g., oil and grease).
• Physical components, such as total dissolved solids and general water chemistry parameters (pH, dissolved oxygen, biochemical oxygen demand, and chemical oxygen demand) are measured using Standard Methods (APHA, 1998).
• Determination of problematic constituents. Problematic constituents are identified as elements or compounds that exceed actual or anticipated National Pollutant Discharge and Elimination System (NPDES) discharge limits or have the potential to adversely affect sentinel toxicity testing species used in whole effluent toxicity (WET) tests.
• If NPDES discharge limits are not currently available, Southern Research can estimate these limits using a Reasonable Potential Analysis (RPA) procedure. The estimated discharge limits are useful for screening effluents for potentially problematic constituents.
• Toxicity values, such as the lowest observable effect concentrations (LOEC) for each constituent can also be compared to chemical analyses conducted on effluents to identify potential problematic constituents. Since industrial effluents are complex mixtures and may contain elements or compounds that enhance the singular toxicity of a constituent, toxicity tests with a range of serial dilutions can be conducted in order to accurately understand the risks of constituents in these waters. Southern Research can develop effluent-specific toxicity tests for the identification of toxicants that cause additive and synergistic effects.